Archive
The Germans can be proud of their hospitality: their land takes a big handball for the sixth time. It was here that the history of the world championships began - even before the Second World War, and after it two championships were held by the GDR and the FRG. However, the last time it was already a quarter century ago in - 1982. Then, by the way, the USSR national team became the first and only time world champion.
The Russian team has two such titles (1993 and 1997). The absolute leadership is shared by Romanians and Swedes - four gold each. The Germans (Germany and Germany) and the French won two times, the teams of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Croatia and Spain one at a time.
Regulations
The current tournament marks the record holders. It will be held in 11 cities. It will be unprecedented in duration - 17 days - and the number of matches - 92. This is due to the innovations of the regulations, which, since the introduction of the 24-team format (in 1995), have already gained their fourth configuration.
The feature of this tournament is that nobody will leave it ahead of schedule. In other words, all 24 teams, including notebook outsiders, will argue over the final places until the last days. The idea is dubious in terms of marketing luck. But the Germans for some reason are convinced that the consolation tournament for places below 12th, called the "Presidential Cup", will also find its audience. Oh oh
As for the medal showdowns, they will begin already in the preliminary round. There, the teams are divided according to the “6 by 4” scheme (instead of the previous “4 by 6”).
A (Wetzlar): Tunisia, Slovenia, Kuwait, Greenland.
B (Magdeburg): France, Iceland, Ukraine, Australia.
C (Berlin / Halle): Germany, Poland, Brazil, Argentina.
D (Bremen) : Spain, Czech Republic, Egypt, Qatar.
E (Kiel): Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Angola.
F (Stuttgart): Croatia, RUSSIA, Morocco, South Korea.
The two best teams of each group advance into the main round, where two sixes will be made up (A / B / C and D / E / F). And already there, the composition of the quarter-finalists will be determined, who will argue for places in the “final of four”.
Issue price
At stake is not just the gold of the World Cup. Its owner is legalized as a participant in the Olympic tournament in Beijing 2008! By the way, the winner of the European Championship will also receive the same right in a year. The rest of those who want to play at the Olympics will have to make their way there through the qualification system for the first time. So, a place in it is guaranteed to teams that finish in Germany in the range of places from 2nd to 7th. Moreover, those who play in the semifinals will also receive a preemptive right to host the Olympic qualifying quartets, of which there will be three.
Champion 2005
The defense of the title of the strongest team in the world is before the Spanish national team. The most difficult task. It is enough to say that the last time the Romanians managed to win two world championships in a row was 70 and 74.
Spanish gold at the 2005 World Cup in Tunisia was a revelation. This success was preceded by many years of trampling the Spaniards on other pedestal steps. And everyone has already lost faith in their ability to take the final decisive steps.
The outwardly shy namesake of the king, Juan Carlos Pastor, managed to remove the damage from his compatriots (the translation of the name is symbolic - “shepherd”). A trainer working part-time in the modest Valladolid (the fifth club in the Spanish hierarchy) created a surprisingly harmonious and powerful ensemble. With the departure from the Spanish national team of the great, but never sharing the premiership of Talent Duyshebaev and Enrik Masip, the team forgot about the game with an eye on the stars and earned with the frequency and clarity of the brand new thresher. Her only significant failure occurred in the final match of Euro 2006, lost to the French. How will it be today?
Favorites
The hypothetical encroachment on the Spanish laurels is most easily attributed to other teams that have headed, according to the rating, the lists of preliminary quartets: Tunisia, France, Germany, Denmark, Croatia.
Let us leave alone the German hosts, before whose eyes there is an excellent example of compatriots-football players, who enthusiastically fulfilled their home planetary festival last summer. Handball players led by barbel Heiner Brand take, however, higher than Klinsmann bronze. And not without reason.
And the most exotic favorite is the Tunisian team. Her semifinal breakthrough two years ago was rushed to write off to the benefits of the native walls. What was the amazement of the skeptics this fall when the Croatian helmsman of the North Africans, Sead Hassanefendic, brought them to the finals of the prestigious World Cup!
Truant
Unique for handball history, the anomaly is the first world championship without Swedes! Being late with a generational change and hastening to say goodbye to the legendary teacher Bengt Johansson, “Tre Krunur”, who were not impoverished, however, because of their talents, after 11th place at the last World Cup, they could not break through the qualifying sieve to the final stage of last year’s continental championship, and now - and to the world forum. Barriers in front of the Scandinavians lowered the teams of Poland and Iceland.
Excellent students
Having admired the January handball firmament, ask yourself a joyful job to peer into the brightest and most unusual luminaries. The choice is largely a matter of taste. We recommend Croats Mirza Jomba and Ivano Balic, Frenchman Nikolai Karabatich, Tunisian Wissem Hamm, Spaniard Rolando Urios, Dane Michael Knudsen, Icelander Olafur Stefansson, Pole Karol Beletsky, German Henning Fritz ...
Teachers
The championship in Germany will be a parade of unique characters in handball history, which will take places on the team benches.
Four coaches have already led men's squads to the gold of world championships. These are the already mentioned Juan Carlos Pastor (Spain, 2005), Lino Chervar (Croatia, 2003), Vladimir Maksimov (Russia, 1993, 1997) and Zoran Zhivkovich (Yugoslavia, 1986), the leader of the Egypt national team today.
Only two of this quartet also won Olympic gold: Maximov (2000) and Chervar (2004).
However, the head coach of the Russian national team has an argument in order to become the absolute leader of the coaching workshop: after all, he also won the European Championship (1996)!
Three of the national team mentors playing in the German championship became Olympic champions as players: Maximov (1976), Zhivkovich (1972) and Ukrainian Sergey Kushniryuk (1976).
And truly unique is the coaching “iconostasis” of Danes Ulrik Vilbek. He, like Maximov, won “all the gold of the world”, leading to the titles of the champion of the planet, continent and Olympics ... the women's national team of Denmark!
Russia
Let's say a word about the chances of Russian handball players. Led by the charismatic and imperious Maximov, they achieved their last notable success two and a half years ago, taking bronze in the Olympic Athens. That top tournament was a kind of Rubicon: the legionnaire guard, nurtured on the plentiful breads of the USSR championships, began to surrender leadership positions in the national team. Having managed to sweep out the richest bins that he inherited, Maximov did not bother to create a reliable stabilization fund. The national team is less and less like a national team. It is formed, in fact, from the players of one club - the Chekhov Bears. And he, we note, has never in his five-year biography even made his way to the Top 8 of the Champions League. So judge how high today's chances are for Russians in a dispute with the really strongest teams in the world ...
By the way, at the 2005 World Cup, the Russian team, which briefly passed to Anatoly Drachev, was classified 8th. A year ago, with Maximov returning to the helm, she became the 6th at the 2006 European Championships. Do not rush to consider the repetition of these results as a failure.