2023 IHF Men's World Handball Championship

[Sithara007]

I agree. I watched beach handball long time ago (I think it has been 15 years when my ex girlfriend played it). I think that beach handball has somewhat different rules than "normal" handball. They give extra points for attractive goals and that's why it's gaining more attention. At least that were the rules when my ex girlfriend played it. For me handball is not that attractive sport. I'm not saying that it's easy to play, but 90% of the game is infront of each team's goal and I don't like it. But that's my personal opinion.

I have watched handball matches (mostly in Olympics) and I couldn't find much fault with the format. Here in India, back in 2020 the Handball Federation of India launched the Indian Premier Handball League as a joint venture with Bluesport Entertainment Private Limited. However the 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled due to COVID. Now they are planning for the first edition in 2023, and hopefully it will make the sport more popular in India. Their website looks quite attractive, and I just hope that there will be no further delays:

https://www.premierhandball.com/

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[slackovic]

I agree. I watched beach handball long time ago (I think it has been 15 years when my ex girlfriend played it). I think that beach handball has somewhat different rules than "normal" handball. They give extra points for attractive goals and that's why it's gaining more attention. At least that were the rules when my ex girlfriend played it. For me handball is not that attractive sport. I'm not saying that it's easy to play, but 90% of the game is infront of each team's goal and I don't like it. But that's my personal opinion.

I have watched handball matches (mostly in Olympics) and I couldn't find much fault with the format. Here in India, back in 2020 the Handball Federation of India launched the Indian Premier Handball League as a joint venture with Bluesport Entertainment Private Limited. However the 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled due to COVID. Now they are planning for the first edition in 2023, and hopefully it will make the sport more popular in India. Their website looks quite attractive, and I just hope that there will be no further delays:

https://www.premierhandball.com/

Actions like that really contributes to bring more popularity to a sport. However, the problem is what will happen when money from the IHF dries out (or gets smaller) and there are no local businesses that will sponsor clubs. Similar thing happened in Croatia when they tried popularizing ice hockey. A local club was admitted to the international league that brought more quality players and games. Everything went great, the ring was packed with fans, the team and the atmosphere around the club was really good. But then the club started to get less and less money from the league and then everything fell apart.

Maybe this trial in India will be better because IHF is involved.

[Sithara007]

Actions like that really contributes to bring more popularity to a sport. However, the problem is what will happen when money from the IHF dries out (or gets smaller) and there are no local businesses that will sponsor clubs. Similar thing happened in Croatia when they tried popularizing ice hockey. A local club was admitted to the international league that brought more quality players and games. Everything went great, the ring was packed with fans, the team and the atmosphere around the club was really good. But then the club started to get less and less money from the league and then everything fell apart.

Maybe this trial in India will be better because IHF is involved.

I really hope that this league (Indian Premier Handball League) will become successful, but already it has been postponed a few times. Some of the similar ventures ended up as failure, and I don't want this league to end up like them. Hockey India League (HIL) was launched with great fanfare back in 2013 and it sank without any trace. Sponsors are available in India, but the sports body needs to prove that they have the potential to attract new fans. And for the Handball league, apart from the IHF they also received a lot of support from Asian Handball Federation.

[slackovic]

So, the tournament starts in five days and teams are preparing for it by playing international friendly games. I won't list all of the games because there are really a lot of them. I was quite surprised to see that Russia is playing an international game but then I saw that it is against Belarus. I guess two countries arranged friendly games because they can't compete in the World Championship. Another interesting fact is that yesterday Russia played their first international game in almost a year. In that time Belarus played only one international game against China back in June 2022.

[Trofo]

This thread needs a bump ASAP. Competition starts today and thread went down so much that I couldn't find it and opened a new one (locked now) Glad to see you here @slackovic so at least I know I will not be the only one rooting for Croatia. We played some good friendlies but we have a lot of injury problems and I am a bit concerned about line up. We shall see on Friday.

As i wrote in that other thread, France should win today and odds @1.4 are not bad at all.

[slackovic]

This thread needs a bump ASAP. Competition starts today and thread went down so much that I couldn't find it and opened a new one (locked now) Glad to see you here @slackovic so at least I know I will not be the only one rooting for Croatia. We played some good friendlies but we have a lot of injury problems and I am a bit concerned about line up. We shall see on Friday.

As i wrote in that other thread, France should win today and odds @1.4 are not bad at all.

I don't think that France will have a problem beating Poland today. Poland is a host and that gives them some advantage but France is... well, France 1.4 odd is not bad and I might take it.

As for Croatia... I don't know. I didn't have time to watch friendly games that were played, but I heard that Croatia won a cup that they hosted as preparation for the World Championship. If I remember correctly, Croatia likes to play like a diesel motor - they start with bad games and improve their form as a tournament progresses.

[Bttzed03]

Handball is one of the better sports to get some money away from the bookies so it would be shame to skip on it

@Trofo, since we're here, what's the secret to this ^? Should we bet mostly on the favorites?

The competition starts today with France-Poland game. Did not watch a lot of friendlies coming up to this competition so I will start slow and check the teams in initial games before placing big bets. Odds @1.4 look fair for France win and H2H is 7:1 for France so I will take that France ML just to make it more interesting to watch.

Since I got intrigued, I'm going to follow your bet Which bookie gives you @1.4? It probably dropped that quickly because it's already @1.32 in my sportsbook. Anyway, still not a bad deal I guess.

Done placing my bet on France. I also checked other bookies and the odds did drop to @1.3ish

[Yatsan]

This thread needs a bump ASAP. Competition starts today and thread went down so much that I couldn't find it and opened a new one (locked now) Glad to see you here @slackovic so at least I know I will not be the only one rooting for Croatia. We played some good friendlies but we have a lot of injury problems and I am a bit concerned about line up. We shall see on Friday.

As i wrote in that other thread, France should win today and odds @1.4 are not bad at all.

I don't think that France will have a problem beating Poland today. Poland is a host and that gives them some advantage but France is... well, France 1.4 odd is not bad and I might take it.

As for Croatia... I don't know. I didn't have time to watch friendly games that were played, but I heard that Croatia won a cup that they hosted as preparation for the World Championship. If I remember correctly, Croatia likes to play like a diesel motor - they start with bad games and improve their form as a tournament progresses.

France is indeed France. It is a good thing that the leauge started today and as for gamblers, this will be a huge opportunity to look between match ups especially for those who re avid fans of this sport. I'm quite new with this sports but I am into sportsbetting that is why I am trying to cope up with new sports to catch my interest and one of my prospects is handball. Upon reading some of the articles such as with previous tournaments held, these are the nmes which are a bit 'noisy'; France, Croatia, Egypt, and Morroco. So for this game, Ithink I'd go with odds on France to somehow start my path in this league. Would be okay with other suggestions to help me coping up with teams.

[Trofo]

Handball is one of the better sports to get some money away from the bookies so it would be shame to skip on it

@Trofo, since we're here, what's the secret to this ^? Should we bet mostly on the favorites?

The competition starts today with France-Poland game. Did not watch a lot of friendlies coming up to this competition so I will start slow and check the teams in initial games before placing big bets. Odds @1.4 look fair for France win and H2H is 7:1 for France so I will take that France ML just to make it more interesting to watch.

Since I got intrigued, I'm going to follow your bet Which bookie gives you @1.4? It probably dropped that quickly because it's already @1.32 in my sportsbook. Anyway, still not a bad deal I guess.

Done placing my bet on France. I also checked other bookies and the odds did drop to @1.3ish

No, just the opposite we should bet on underdogs to cover handicaps. At least that is what works best for me. bookies often give way too low odds on favorites and there is just no value in betting on them. Other than that there is also players under/over. But it is still too early for that kind of bets, I don't follow handball other than on big competitions and that is why I said I will start slowly and than start betting more after I see teams play.

I still have odds @1.4 in my local bookie but they have better odds than most online places. Problem is they also come with various taxes so you loose a lot from your winnings. I am usually betting only in bitcoin on Sportsbet but I burned my bank there and don't have access to wallet before weekend so I had to turn to fiat bookies 

[Sithara007]

No surprises during the first match. It was a close one, but France won in the end with a narrow margin of 26-24. For today, there are 4 matches and most of the matches involve weaker teams. Out of 8 teams in action today, I don't think that any of them are ranked within the top-20. Three Asian teams will be having their first matches - Iran (vs Chile), South Korea (vs Hungary) and Saudi Arabia (vs Slovenia). I have checked odds from some of the sportsbooks, and Iran is at -125. South Korea is at +750 for the match against Hungary and Saudi Arabia is having odds of +3300 against Slovenia.

For the last match, Uruguay is placed at +2500 compared to -5,000 for Cape Verde. 

[slackovic]

No surprises during the first match. It was a close one, but France won in the end with a narrow margin of 26-24. For today, there are 4 matches and most of the matches involve weaker teams. Out of 8 teams in action today, I don't think that any of them are ranked within the top-20. Three Asian teams will be having their first matches - Iran (vs Chile), South Korea (vs Hungary) and Saudi Arabia (vs Slovenia). I have checked odds from some of the sportsbooks, and Iran is at -125. South Korea is at +750 for the match against Hungary and Saudi Arabia is having odds of +3300 against Slovenia.

For the last match, Uruguay is placed at +2500 compared to -5,000 for Cape Verde. 

I just checked the odds and I was pretty surprised seeing that Cape Verde is a strong favorite against Uruguay. I'm aware that Uruguay is not that known in the handball world, but I never heard of country called Cape Verde. I don't think that we will see any surprises today because all games include a big favorite against a much weaker team. I don't think I will place any bets today.

[Trofo]

No surprises during the first match. It was a close one, but France won in the end with a narrow margin of 26-24. For today, there are 4 matches and most of the matches involve weaker teams. Out of 8 teams in action today, I don't think that any of them are ranked within the top-20. Three Asian teams will be having their first matches - Iran (vs Chile), South Korea (vs Hungary) and Saudi Arabia (vs Slovenia). I have checked odds from some of the sportsbooks, and Iran is at -125. South Korea is at +750 for the match against Hungary and Saudi Arabia is having odds of +3300 against Slovenia.

For the last match, Uruguay is placed at +2500 compared to -5,000 for Cape Verde.  

I just checked the odds and I was pretty surprised seeing that Cape Verde is a strong favorite against Uruguay. I'm aware that Uruguay is not that known in the handball world, but I never heard of country called Cape Verde. I don't think that we will see any surprises today because all games include a big favorite against a much weaker team. I don't think I will place any bets today.

Cape verde is a better team but I don't think they can cover handicap when they are that much of a favorite. I just placed a bet on Uruguay +10.5 @1.85. Never seen these two play but looking at some stats I think this should be a good bet.

My other bet for today is over 55.5 in Slovenia game @1.8. Slovenia was always playing very fast handball and I hope they have still kept that trait. If they did, Slovenia will probably score over 40 goals by themselves. As I said still keeping it small stake until I see teams playing.

France was actually quite poor yesterday and they don't look to scary. Only guy that would have his place in the France squad of old is Dika Mem, going forward I am taking counter handicaps against France and Dika Mem over points if the margin is not set too high.

[slackovic]

Cape verde is a better team but I don't think they can cover handicap when they are that much of a favorite. I just placed a bet on Uruguay +10.5 @1.85. Never seen these two play but looking at some stats I think this should be a good bet.

Seeing how Uruguay played their last tournament (South and Central American Championship), I wouldn't be surprised to see you winning this bet. In the last year Cape Verde have never beaten another team by more than 10 goals. But Uruguay generally loses their games with a large goal difference so it remains to be seen how this one will end.

My other bet for today is over 55.5 in Slovenia game @1.8. Slovenia was always playing very fast handball and I hope they have still kept that trait. If they did, Slovenia will probably score over 40 goals by themselves. As I said still keeping it small stake until I see teams playing.

I know that they are playing against a much weaker team but I'm not that certain about them scoring more than 40 goals. It's the first game of the tournament and they may ease up once they get a solid goal difference. In handball goal difference is not that important like in football so I don't expect them to go with full strength in this game.

[Trofo]

My other bet for today is over 55.5 in Slovenia game @1.8. Slovenia was always playing very fast handball and I hope they have still kept that trait. If they did, Slovenia will probably score over 40 goals by themselves. As I said still keeping it small stake until I see teams playing.

I know that they are playing against a much weaker team but I'm not that certain about them scoring more than 40 goals. It's the first game of the tournament and they may ease up once they get a solid goal difference. In handball goal difference is not that important like in football so I don't expect them to go with full strength in this game.

And that is why I played over in total goals and not over Slovenia goals. You can't take it easy in handball, if you take the foot off the gas opponent will score goals. If Slovenia has big advantage they will just spread the minutes more evenly.

Why do you say goal difference is not important in Handball? It is as important as in football if not more. Don't you remeber when we needed that over 11 goals win against Poland to reach semi finals and we got it?

[slackovic]

And that is why I played over in total goals and not over Slovenia goals. You can't take it easy in handball, if you take the foot off the gas opponent will score goals. If Slovenia has big advantage they will just spread the minutes more evenly.

Why do you say goal difference is not important in Handball? It is as important as in football if not more. Don't you remeber when we needed that over 11 goals win against Poland to reach semi finals and we got it?

Hm... How can I explain what I meant... In football there are only few goals in the entire game and a winning team can have goal difference by 1, 2, 3 or (rarely) more goals. At the same time in handball winnings with 10+ goal difference are not that rare. That's why I said that a goal difference is more important in football than in handball. I'm not saying that it's not important, just that it's more important in football.

[Trofo]

And that is why I played over in total goals and not over Slovenia goals. You can't take it easy in handball, if you take the foot off the gas opponent will score goals. If Slovenia has big advantage they will just spread the minutes more evenly.

Why do you say goal difference is not important in Handball? It is as important as in football if not more. Don't you remeber when we needed that over 11 goals win against Poland to reach semi finals and we got it?

Hm... How can I explain what I meant... In football there are only few goals in the entire game and a winning team can have goal difference by 1, 2, 3 or (rarely) more goals. At the same time in handball winnings with 10+ goal difference are not that rare. That's why I said that a goal difference is more important in football than in handball. I'm not saying that it's not important, just that it's more important in football.

I thought it might have been that argument but I don't agree with it. You only need goal difference when 2 top teams play a draw between themselves. Meaning they are probably quite equal in strength. What difference does it make if they are winning their game against weakest team in the group with 2-4 goals (football) or 12-14 goals (handball)?

I just realized we have what could be a great game today to watch between Island and Portugal, should be lots of goals in it. Unfortunately bookies realized that as well and put the margin at 59.5 which is quite high. Goal per minute is never easy to get in close games. This one will tell us lot for the upcoming matches so I am watching it for sure.

[cygan]

after yesterday's very thrilling and intense opening game which france won 26-24 vs. poland, today we continue with a total of 7 games (from groups a, b, c and d)
spain (one of the favorites) will start the tournament today vs. montenegro
here again yesterday's game and today's encounters graphically represented

[Sithara007]

Cape Verde won with a large margin yesterday, as they defeated Uruguay by 33-25. There were not many upsets. Iran managed to defeat Chile, although by the narrowest of the margins (25-24). Hungary managed to defeat South Korea by 35-27 and Slovenia managed to defeat Saudi Arabia by a large margin of 33-19. So those who made bets on the stronger teams won yesterday. Today's odds are as follows:

Germany vs Qatar: GER -500, Qatar +550
Argentina vs Netherlands: ARG +210, NED -167
Morocco vs USA: MOR -357, USA +450
Bahrain vs Tunisia: BAH +260, TUN -192

Tomorrow's matches:

Croatia vs Egypt: CRO +114, EGY +120
Serbia vs Algeria: SRB -1429, ALG +1500
Denmark vs Belgium: DAN -5000, BLG +5400
Norway vs North Macedonia: NOR -1429, MAC +1500

[slackovic]

Cape Verde won with a large margin yesterday, as they defeated Uruguay by 33-25. There were not many upsets. Iran managed to defeat Chile, although by the narrowest of the margins (25-24). Hungary managed to defeat South Korea by 35-27 and Slovenia managed to defeat Saudi Arabia by a large margin of 33-19. So those who made bets on the stronger teams won yesterday. Today's odds are as follows:

Germany vs Qatar: GER -500, Qatar +550
Argentina vs Netherlands: ARG +210, NED -167
Morocco vs USA: MOR -357, USA +450
Bahrain vs Tunisia: BAH +260, TUN -192

Tomorrow's matches:

Croatia vs Egypt: CRO +114, EGY +120
Serbia vs Algeria: SRB -1429, ALG +1500
Denmark vs Belgium: DAN -5000, BLG +5400
Norway vs North Macedonia: NOR -1429, MAC +1500

Actually considering such low odds for Cape Verde vs. Uruguay game, I expected even bigger goal difference. Like I said, I never heard of Cape Verde but looking at the previous results I wouldn't expect Uruguay to score 25 goals.

Trofo, I see that your bet for Saudi Arabia vs Slovenia game to end with 50+ goals was a success. Great call

As for today's games I'd say that favorites are pretty clear in all games except for the game Croatia vs Egypt. I can't be objective in this game so I will probably go with Croatia winning but it's a tough call. Croatia often plays poor at the start of the tournament and then improve their form as the tournament advances.

[Trofo]

Trofo, I see that your bet for Saudi Arabia vs Slovenia game to end with 50+ goals was a success. Great call

As for today's games I'd say that favorites are pretty clear in all games except for the game Croatia vs Egypt. I can't be objective in this game so I will probably go with Croatia winning but it's a tough call. Croatia often plays poor at the start of the tournament and then improve their form as the tournament advances.

That was actually the only game I missed yesterday, margin was 55.5 not 50 unfortunately. But I more than made up for it with late ticket, you know the language so you will understand and others can probably get the gist as well. Football games market is both to score, rest should be obvious.


The clock is running in this competition even when we have penalty. So under is the market to go for. That is my main tip for today Croatia - Egypt under 56.5. Egypt is a big under team and we like to wait for last seconds of the attack as well. Should be free money. My first bigger stake in this competition.