The 27th World Handball Championship 2021!

[Lucius]

The 27th World Handball Championship starts on January 13, and this year it will be held in Egypt. Although everything in the world is affected by the pandemic, the matches will not be played without spectators - although it was originally planned that the capacity would be 30%, it was finally decided that the audience would be filled to a capacity of 20%.

Without underestimating anyone, at first glance I would single out some old favorites who should play the lead roles in this competition as well. From group A there are Germany and Hungary, and from groups B and C we should definitely single out Spain and Croatia who played a friendly match a few days ago in which Croatia won as host (31-28). Three days later, Spain also played a friendly match with Russia and also lost (26-28), so even though it is a preparatory match, it is possible that Spain has some problems given the number of goals conceded in those two matches.

The absolute favorite of Group D is of course Denmark, which lost a friendly match against Norway (34-36) yesterday, which brings us to a very interesting Group E with France and Norway. I have to admit that group F is quite unknown to me, while from groups G and H I would single out Sweden and Slovenia as possible favorites.

I hope for good handball and as few refereeing mistakes as possible - and let the best one win

More info on link : https://www.handballegypt2021.com/

[Daniel91]

I have heard some rumors that due to the larger number of infected players, Sweden and the Czech Republic could give up this competition.
The IHF has already determined the list of reserve teams and the first on the line is Macedonia.
Given the crisis with Covid there is reportedly the possibility of a new draw and changing the entire skeleton of the competition.
It seems that the collapse of the competition and the cancellation of the arrival of the best players is also possible.
The decision to allow spectators to follow the matches directly is also very controversial.
The Croatian online portal Index wrote about this recently here: https://www.index.hr/sport/clanak/spu-u-rukometu-prijeti-totalni-debakl-hoce-li-ihf-spasiti-stvar-u-zadnji-trenutak/2245036.aspx

Anyway, this is going to be a very controversial competition.

[tyKiwanuka]

Nice thread Though I don't follow Handball in general very much, the WC/EC/Olympics are always nice to check out and by watching the games you get a good impression pretty fast and can find some good bets without being an expert.

Some bad news were already published in December, when some core pieces of the german NT cancelled their participation due to safety concerns. There were some discussions about it, since these players did play in Bundesliga/CL all the time and now all of sudden, they consider the WC with a quite good hygiene concept unsafe, but anyway.

The missing players will be Hendrik Pekeler, Patrick Wiencek, Steffen Weinhold (all THW Kiel) and Finn Lemke (MT Melsungen). This is a big blow for Germany, since the guys from Kiel have been the defensive heart and soul and it will be very hard to replace this well working block in the middle of the defense. So don't expect a lot from Germany, betting on overs could maybe be a good option.

Here are the outright odds taken from William Hill:


Source: https://sports.williamhill.com/betting/en-gb/handball

[sempak]

I am amazed that Norway and Sweden are so good in this sport, judging by the odds I see here in the table. what could that have to do with? it cannot be compared in total with the level of the countries in football.
Also nice to see that Egypt is also a decent team with handball. i thought it would be way to hot to play handball in that country 

[Lucius]

I have heard some rumors that due to the larger number of infected players, Sweden and the Czech Republic could give up this competition.
The IHF has already determined the list of reserve teams and the first on the line is Macedonia.

I do not see any official information that the Czech Republic or Sweden will not participate in this competition, data from the IHF from yesterday confirm their performance. In situations like this, it’s always good to have a backup option, as players can become positive on a daily basis.

The decision to allow spectators to follow the matches directly is also very controversial.

I do not see how a smaller number of people who would respect all epidemiological measures would be a problem, but still the decision was made to play without spectators.

This is a big blow for Germany, since the guys from Kiel have been the defensive heart and soul and it will be very hard to replace this well working block in the middle of the defense. So don't expect a lot from Germany, betting on overs could maybe be a good option.

I find it ridiculous that someone refuses to play a competition like this because they are afraid of infection, but at the same time they play the domestic league and also the final four of the handball Champions League without any problems. Still, maybe this is an opportunity for some new players to show what they can do.

I am amazed that Norway and Sweden are so good in this sport, judging by the odds I see here in the table. what could that have to do with?

Then you are not at all familiar with handball, because this sport is very popular in these countries, as is the case with hockey, but of course football. Their leagues are certainly not as strong as the German or Spanish ones, but that is because their best players play in those leagues. At the last European Women's Handball Championship, Norway won first place which only shows that handball is a very important sport for them.

[swogerino]

I think there are not much of handball fans in the forum while about 90% being soccer fans.Still diversity is good and a thread like this is needed.I learned about Scandinavian teams being the best in this competition,I knew about Ice hockey but didn’t knew about handball.

[Trofo]

Also nice to see that Egypt is also a decent team with handball. i thought it would be way to hot to play handball in that country 

Egypt is a solid team but nothing more. Their big plus in this championship is home turf. There is usually the talk of referees favoring home teams in handball and Egypt is very physical team which can use that to the maximum. Since there will not be supporters in the stand maybe that influence will not be that big but I will still be vary careful before betting against them.


Croatia actually has very little injury problems this year and we should make good use of that. We are missing only Stepancic which seems very insignificant when we check absentees from teams like Germany or Sweden. Maybe we will even manage to do good against France now that they are without older Karabatic

[acquafredda]

I used to play handball when I was young and I remember the crazy amount of sweat we produced for every game (in a closed environment). How will they make sure that these guys will play under safe conditions? Who knows!
Anyway, I did not know Denmark was that good at it.

[madnessteat]

It is a pity of course that the Russian athletes have to play under the flag of FGR (Russian Handball Federation) instead of the state tricolor, but I think it should not affect the game itself and they will show their best side as always.

I think at least Russian handball players will come out of their group winners.

[buwaytress]

So I placed my first bet today on handball. I know nothing about this sport, but it does look really athletic, exciting, and I know for sure my arms couldn't last 10 minutes at the kind of speed and strength they play. I have severe multiple dislocation, exhausted socket... and it's from football, if you believe.

Nevertheless. Russia look like a really good pick, I got it at about 3.6x boosted odds... and Trofo says Iceland are a better team than Portugal but again I go for form, so a Russia-Portugal parlay to kick this off at almost 6/1.

If I bum out, I'll start following some of you, maybe. As if I don't throw away enough money on sports =p

[Insanerman]

So I placed my first bet today on handball. I know nothing about this sport, but it does look really athletic, exciting, and I know for sure my arms couldn't last 10 minutes at the kind of speed and strength they play. I have severe multiple dislocation, exhausted socket... and it's from football, if you believe.

Same here mate. I don't really know what Handball is until now then I've searched it on Youtube and watched some highlights and it was pretty fun to watch. I see it waaaay better and enjoyable than football (if you would play it as well). Also, it reminds me of some childhood room basketball with relatives where you pitch the ball on a box. I guess this would be part of sports I would be searching, watching, and betting on. I just hope that there would also prediction threads for the upcoming handball games in this championship. 

[Daniel91]

As I predicted earlier (and it was expected) the Czech Republic has officially given up the competition and will be replaced by Macedonia, the first reserve.
It's official new now: https://www.ihf.info/competitions/men/308/27th-ihf-mens-world-championship-2021/22415/news/25989

[cryptofrka]

I just went to see the groups and saw that Cape Verde is playing in the tournament?

I really dislike what they are doing with handball, they are killing the sport. 32 teams, half of them will be losing by double figures. 3 new teams (Uruguay, Cape Verde and DR Congo) combined would probably lose to a club I played for 20 years ago.

[tyKiwanuka]

The US is out as well after reporting 18 Covid cases and will be replaced by Switzerland. Cape Verde is battling some outbreak also, but so far it looks like they are going to play, though they are still in Portugal as of now. They will play Hungary on Friday, HC-14.5 looks like a good bet under these circumstances. Brazil was reporting cases too, but mostly staff.

This is already a big mess before the start Probably not about the strongest team, but who has the fewest problems with this virus.

[Mauser]

I just went to see the groups and saw that Cape Verde is playing in the tournament?

I really dislike what they are doing with handball, they are killing the sport. 32 teams, half of them will be losing by double figures. 3 new teams (Uruguay, Cape Verde and DR Congo) combined would probably lose to a club I played for 20 years ago.

Yeah it seems a bit crazy too include all these tiny countries. But we shouldn't forget that handball needs more followers too. It could be a good way to include more countries and people from all around the world. In the end it only means that the group stage becomes more predictable and less exciting games. But the quarter and semi finals should be very exciting games. It also means less of the good teams will be knocked out on the group stage.

[cryptofrka]

Yeah it seems a bit crazy too include all these tiny countries. But we shouldn't forget that handball needs more followers too. It could be a good way to include more countries and people from all around the world. In the end it only means that the group stage becomes more predictable and less exciting games. But the quarter and semi finals should be very exciting games. It also means less of the good teams will be knocked out on the group stage.

The whole format is wrong. There are 4 teams per group (8 groups) in the first stage, top 3 teams go through to the next round. Then they form 4 groups containing 6 teams each, meaning that a team like Angola, Uruguay or Bahrein will be forced to play a minimum of 6 games against strong opposition. If a team like that loses 5 games, each of them by 15 goals difference, I'm not really sure it will bring more followers in these countries.

[Trofo]

Yeah it seems a bit crazy too include all these tiny countries. But we shouldn't forget that handball needs more followers too. It could be a good way to include more countries and people from all around the world. In the end it only means that the group stage becomes more predictable and less exciting games. But the quarter and semi finals should be very exciting games. It also means less of the good teams will be knocked out on the group stage.

The whole format is wrong. There are 4 teams per group (8 groups) in the first stage, top 3 teams go through to the next round. Then they form 4 groups containing 6 teams each, meaning that a team like Angola, Uruguay or Bahrein will be forced to play a minimum of 6 games against strong opposition. If a team like that loses 5 games, each of them by 15 goals difference, I'm not really sure it will bring more followers in these countries.

Problem with handball is that big differences in quality can't be hidden by playing defense and counter attacking like in football. Any of the top teams can just decide to play serious defense for 20 minutes and make +15 goal difference in that time. Or treat the game as training and let the guys have fun. It is unfortunate that this expansion of teams coincided with covid outbreak. I can already see some top team getting kicked from competition because half of their team got covid in one of those less important matches.

This year, teams can bring 20 (instead of usual 16) players and if they can't field 10 healthy players for any game they are out of competition.

[Lucius]

It might be best if the competition was postponed, but then the question arises as to when the games would be played later because the schedule of domestic leagues and handball Champions League would have to change - or maybe it could be played after the end of the season as is the case with football?

The whole format is wrong.

Look at it from the angle of those countries that would not otherwise have a chance to play competitions like this - which may mean that some of them will invest more in handball at the national level to be more competitive in the future in competitions like this. Probably that's the purpose of this format, although some will certainly not be happy to watch such matches. Personally, I don't mind that, there is always an outsider who surprises everyone and plays above all expectations.


As for the match that opens the competition, we have one interesting thing. Both national teams (Egypt & Chile) have Spanish coaches - The Egyptians have a well-known Roberto Garcia Parrondo (win EHF Men’s Champions League in 2019 with Vardar), and on the other side for Chile is Mateo Garralda.

[acquafredda]

Yes, this competition should have been postponed! Look at the mess that is happening: Egypt has already a lot of troubles going on in the country and I think the least they can do now is to make sure that an handball competition will be covid risk-free.

-snip-

The whole format is wrong.

Or treat the game as training and let the guys have fun.

Would you do that as a professional player? I personally would not go there and risk my life (and career) to have some fun. 

[Trofo]

Or treat the game as training and let the guys have fun.

Would you do that as a professional player? I personally would not go there and risk my life (and career) to have some fun. 

Probably yes, maybe it sounds a bit harsh but professional players are actually one of the safest groups of people. They are all in best years of their life and in top form plus they have all possible medical care they could wish for. Covid is just another thing that can happen, same as injury or traffic accident. We are taking risks everyday and that falls under acceptable risk in my book. I would follow all possible precautions and enjoy opportunity to play in big competition.

Life is about living it and not letting it go by. You have a limited number of World cups in your body as professional athlete and I for one would take my opportunity to leave my mark in all of them. But I also played football with busted knee for 2 years before going on surgery so maybe I am bit crazy that way