1) Polish International, Marcin Lijewski, discusses returning to Poland to play with his new club Wisla Plock.
Gazeta.pl (Polish): Link 

2) Spanish International, David Davis retires.
EHF Website (English): Link
(Side note: Of African descent and with an American sounding name, I was curious when I first saw him play several years ago as to the personal back story of this non-typical looking Spanish National Team player. There is, however, no USA connection. His ancestry is from Equatorial Guinea, Spain’s only former colony is Sub-Saharan Africa.)

3) Russian International, Sergei Gorbok discusses his return to the HBL and financial problems at his old club, Chekovski Medvedi.
Handball-World (German): Link

4) Chilean International and Magdeburg Circle Runner, Marco Oneto, discusses internal problems with the Chilean national team.
Short summary of the interview at Mundo Handball (Spanish): Link
Audio interview at Handball de Primera (Spanish) : Link

 

1) German Bundesliga clubs overwhelming reject a management proposal to add playoffs.  Handball-World (German): Link

2) A French National Commission won’t approve the contracts of 4 Montpellier players. Contracts for Diego Simonet, Wissem Hmam, Arnaud Sifferet and Antoine Gutfreund exceed Montpellier’s authorized budget. Handnews.fr (French): Link

3) New French power house, Paris St. Germain is not happy with its LNH schedule. At issues is a quick turnaround between French League matches and Champions League matches. Sports.fr (French): Link

4) An update on which nations formally submitted bids for 2019 Men’s and Womens Handball World Championships. Inside the Games: Link

5) The Netherlands Handball Federation appeals EHF fines and suspension. The EHF Court of Handball imposed a 550,000 Euro fine and 3 year competition suspension for backing out of their host responsibilities for the 2012 European Women’s Championship. EHF Website: Link

6) Retiring German referees, Ralf Damian and Frank Wenz reflect on their career. The highlight their officiating at the 2010 USA National Championships in Las Vegas as one of their most memorable events.: Handball-World (German): Link

Yesterday, France’s Montpellier shook off an 11-15 halftime deficit to defeat Poland’s Wisla Plock 29-27 in the first leg of a two leg aggregate qualification match.  Playing the major role in that turn around was Montpellier newcomer, Diego Simonet who scored 7 goals and set up several others with his court awareness and quickness.

Diego Simonet is a familiar name for Pan American Handball followers as he is one of the 3 Simonet brothers (Sebastian and Pablo are the other two) that play for Argentina.  Yesterday, courtesy of ehfTV, however, was the first time I had the opportunity to see him play a full match with a quality web stream.  And based on just this one match observation, I’m actually contemplating as to whether already at age 23 he might just be the best player to ever come out of Argentina.

Probably too soon to tell, but based on his career progression so far it might not be too long before it becomes obvious.  In 2007 he was a key member of Argentina’s surprising 4th Place finish at the Youth World Championships and Argentina followed that up 2 years later with a respectable 6th place finish at the Junior World Championships.  His performances in those events surely played a role in his signing a contract with the Spain’s Torrevieja from 2009-2011, then with France’s Ivry from 2011-2013.  And, then top side Montpellier, apparently liking what they saw the previous two years, signed him to a contract this season.  He’s also been a key part of Argentina’s recent success in Senior events, leading the team in goals and assists at both the 2012 Olympics and 2013 World Championships.

It remains to be seen what his future career holds, but certainly, the fans in Montpellier have welcomed his with open arms, already echoing the arena with chants of “Di–e–goooo, Di–e–goooo.”  Sunday’s match will be in less friendly confines as Wisla Plock  will seek to turn the tables and qualify for the Champions League with a 3 goal victory.   This match will also be show on ehfTV with a start time of 1600 CET or 1000, US Eastern Time.

Highlights of his performance yesterday against Wisla Plock:  Link

Full match video of Thursday’s 1st leg:  Link

Live Video (Sunday’s 2nd leg): Link

Mundo Handball article:  Link

It turned out to be dangerous to speculate about the final outcome on the basis of the results in the preliminary round. The groups must have been rather unbalanced, as group winners who looked strong faded very abruptly during the knock-out stage. Three of them, Slovenia, Germany and Denmark finished no better than 9th, 11th and 13th respectively. Other teams that looked strong in the early going, such as Serbia and hosts Bosnia also faded completely.

Instead it became obvious that Group D, with Sweden, Spain, Egypt and Brazil moving on to the ’round of 16′ must have been the real ‘powerhouse’. Egypt and Brazil won their initial ‘knock-out’ matches, and Brazil made it all the way to 6th place, with Egypt finishing in 8th place. For Brazil, this is really a strong signal for a country that will host the next Olympic handball tournament and seems to be making great strides at the right moment also on the men’s side.

Sweden beat Spain by ten goals when they met on the final day of the group stage. But this does not always mean much when teams meet for a second time, like they did today in the final. However, Sweden, who impressively ended up winning nine straight games, took the early initiative also today. The lead narrowed around half-time, but in the end the Swedes were able to pull away again and gain a 28-23 victory. They had a very solid team, with goalkeeper Peter Johannesson (Saevehof) and Andreas Berg (Oennered) making it to the All-Star Team, while Philip Stenmalm (Drott) got named Championship MVP. It seems that the both the Swedish senior national team and top clubs around Europe have some real talents to rely on in the future.

The Spanish team had a real star player in the form of Alex Dushebaev, son of world-class player and coach Talant. Alex has just recently signed up for Vardar Skopje, who will get a major reinforcement for their participation in the EHF Champions League, after father and son had to leave the now defunct Atletico Madrid. The bronze medals were won by France, beating Croatia 32-27 in a ‘junior version’ of this strong rivalry of recent years. It is interesting to note that the Netherlands took 5th place and Switzerland 7th place, ahead of many highly favored teams. It is great to see that there is some hope that two more teams might be able to (re)join the perennial favorites on the men’s side. Now we just hope that some more non-European teams will join Brazil, Egypt, Tunisia and Argentina at the highest level.

The preliminary rounds finished yesterday, so we are now ready for the ‘knock-out’ stage, starting with the ’round of 16′ tomorrow. There was some excitement on the final day, with a ‘triangle drama’ in one group, where Qatar was eliminated on goal difference in relation to the Netherlands and Switzerland. And in another group, Tunisia got the win they needed against France to make it through. Korea lost narrowly against Hungary, which confirmed their elimination and caused celebration for Argentina.

But while it may be a bit premature to draw a lot of detailed conclusions, there is one disturbing overall observation that is quite clear: the European domination is as strong as ever before! This is the age group where the trends for the next 5-10 years should be possible to recognize, as we are talking about players who turn 21 this year and therefore should soon become important reinforcements for their senior national teams.

Europe has 13 teams in the tournament and the other continents have 11. The polarization can easily be seen. Twelve of the Europeans are in the ’round of 16′ with only Russia failing to qualify. By contrast, only four of the eleven non-Europeans made it through, and those were the ‘usual suspects’: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt and Tunisia. And it should then be noted that Tunisia was the only one of those teams that went through by leaving a European team (Russia) behind them in their group. The other three teams made it through by defeating other non-European teams in their respective groups.

As noted above, Qatar was the only other team to come close. Their elimination must be disappointing, right at the time when they are starting a surge to get ready for the senior World Championship which they are hosting 18 months from now. Just weeks ago, Qatar announced that, with the possible exception of a goalkeeper or two, they would abandon their efforts to strengthen their national team by quickly naturalizing some star players ‘imported’ from abroad. Instead they intend to rely on their own young talents. So they would undoubtedly have wanted to see their ‘U 21′ team do a bit better.

I do not want to go too far in speculating about the outcome of this World Championship yet. The four group winners, Denmark, Germany, Slovenia and Sweden all look quite strong. Moreover, they each seem to have a relatively comfortable match-up in the ’round of 16. But Spain and Croatia, who were the finalists in Europe last year for this age group, are probably also to be reckoned with. However, it would be nice to see a surprise caused by either the Egyptians or the Tunisians. I fear that Argentina and Brazil do not seem to have much hope of advancing further.

Partille Cup is ‘my’ old tournament. As I have undoubtedly mentioned in the past, this is where I had my initial international involvement in handball, serving as competition manager 1970-74. So it is for me a bit special when I have chance to be back there, and even when I read about the experience of USA teams in my old home town.

The USATH web page has already provided some reports and indications of the final results for our teams in the recent finished 2013 edition of Partille Cup. We had teams in the ‘under 21’ category for both men and women. Especially our women’s team did quite well, advancing to the semifinals. Of course, I know that the U 21 bracket is not exactly the most competitive one in Partille Cup or anywhere else. It is a bit of a ‘hybrid’ category and does not attract more than a small number of teams, especially in comparison with the vast number of strong clubs in the younger age groups. So perhaps one needs to be careful about not getting carried away with the conclusions from the results achieved.

But it was certainly nice to see, for the USA teams, for the Partille Cup organizers, and even for me personally, that we had teams that were more competitive and helped provide a nice image. Younger USA teams in the past have typically had a much more difficult time. And it also seems to be that right now we have a bunch of players who fit in well to create a solid U-21 team on the women’s side, whereas they are too young to constitute a strong ‘senior team’, and also in contrast with the novice players we normally have to field in younger age groups. So the question now is, of course, whether this is a group that one could build on for the future or not.

In any case, my conversation with my old friend, Partille Cup ‘general’ Stefan Albrechtson, gives a separate strong reason for satisfaction and pride. He commented that there was a widespread perception during the tournament that, among all the participants from around the world, our USA teams really displayed an energy and positive spirit that was almost unmatched. This involved all the delegation members, i.e., players, coaches and managers, and it was noticeable not just on the court and during the games but also in the overall enthusiasm that they showed throughout the event. This is indeed high praise, coming from Albrechtson who has seen it all over many decades!

Another interesting piece of information obtained from Albrechtson was that Partille Cup is entering into collaboration with the Qatari organizers of the Men’s World Championship in 2015. Delegations from Qatar have been frequent participants in Partille during many years, so the connection was already established. The Qataris know that they will be able to put on an attractive event, not just for the teams but for any spectators who would want to come. But there is the concern that precisely the ability to attract visiting spectators from around the world might be a weak point. This is of course an important question of image, not just for Qatar but for the IHF and the reputation of our sport. The fiasco when the Women’s World Championship was organized in Brazil virtually without spectators stills lingers in people’s minds.

As Partille Cup has a vast communications network around the world, and as Albrechtson, who also is a member of a (somewhat defunct) Commission of the IHF, has an interest in supporting a World Championship wherever it is organized, the scope for support in spreading the word certainly exists. The Partille Cup outreach is particularly strong in the many countries in northern and central Europe, from where it is common for people to travel long distances, whether for vacations or for sports events. So it seems that a special effort will be made to facilitate travel that is less expensive and to organize attractive packages for the stay in Qatar. Many clubs and federations which have close contacts with Partille Cup would find an easy way to get the necessary information through a source they are used to relying on. And for Partille Cup, this would seem a natural and integral part of their mission to promote handball globally.

In mid-September, the eyes of the sports world will be on the IOC Congress in Buenos Aires, where the organizer for the 2020 summer Olympic Games will be decided. The remaining candidates are Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo, after Baku and Doha were eliminated in a preliminary round. Madrid is trying for the third time, but one wonders if the current economic situation of Spain will make the IOC decision-makers hesitating about taking the risk of giving the event to Spain. Istanbul would be an enticing choice, given Turkey’s ‘bridging’ position in a geographic, political and cultural sense. But have the very recent disturbances there undermined their chances? So could it be that Tokyo, which hosted the 1964 summer Olympics, might become the safe choice ‘by default’!?

However, as I see it, the more important decision, with a longer-term impact, will be the selection of a new IOC President to succeed Jacques Rogge. The Belgian, an Olympic yachtsman, is no longer eligible for re-election, after serving for a 12-year period. In some sense, I am perhaps contradicting myself, when I attach such importance to this position. After all, I have often suggested that the IOC is mainly the organization running the Olympic Games, rather than living up to its potential role of really being the overarching and monitoring entity in relation to all the International Federations for individual sports and the National Olympic Committees. The IOC could, and in my view should, do much more to ensure good governance and ethical behavior in international sports, especially as the IOC frantically insists on autonomy, i.e., freedom from scrutiny, for sports organizations in relation to the world around them.

But I still believe that the IOC and its President have the scope for setting appropriate trends and ensuring a positive development for the sports movement globally. So I always want to hold out hope that a new President will be able and willing to act forcefully and exert an influence which will be beneficial to both athletes and sports fans, as modern life brings new challenges and demands. There is a tough competition for resources and media exposure, while at the same time we are subjected to negative influences in such forms a doping, match-fixing, and general corruption. Political pressures will also remain strong, not the least when it comes to decisions about hosting Olympic Games and other major events. The trend where only those with unlimited resources or unconstrained political power will have a chance, Russia and Qatar being recent examples, is a worrisome one. So it will take a strong person with real character to gain control as IOC President.

Six candidates have emerged, and they very recently presented ‘election manifestos’, or program statements, in connection with an IOC gathering in Lausanne. The candidates are, in alphabetical order: Thomas Bach (Germany), Sergei Bubka (Ukraine), Richard Carrion (Puerto Rico),Ser Miang Ng (Singapore), Denis Oswald (Switzerland), and Ching-Kuo Wu (Taiwan). Bach, Carrion, Oswald and Wu are veteran IOC members with more than 20 years of service, while by contrast Bubka is a relative newcomer after his distinguished career as a pole vaulter. Bach and Oswald are also Olympic athletes. I will not here try to comment on their individual background and merits. There may be time for that as we get closer, and you will easily find sources in the media. But from a handball standpoint, it may be of special interest to focus on the candidacy of Bach, who also seems to be the clear favorite at this time.

I have commented in earlier articles, that the IHF President regrettably does not seem to be held in very high regard in IOC circles, contrary to what he often tries to claim. He has managed to put people off, in part because of his persistent and not so elegant efforts to find a way to become an IOC member himself, but in part because of scandals that have not gone unnoticed among IOC members. Rogge commented to media in a conspicuously negative way about the discoveries of some of the IHF President’s business dealings and ‘concerns’ regarding the handling of bidding for TV contracts.

But especially the disastrous matter of the Korea-Kuwait qualification game for the 2008 Olympics caused public reactions from highest level in the IOC. At that very same time, the IHF President tried to reassure his Council, in efforts to prevent appropriate action, that ‘his special contacts’ in the IOC really did not think the whole matter was such a big deal. And the one IOC member he often mentioned was none other than Bach, something which he found important as Bach represents such an important handball country. Of course, it was never really known to IHF Council members what Bach in fact might have thought and said… It is then also of interest that, together with the IHF President himself, the main culprits in the Korea-Kuwait matter was the Kuwaiti president of the Olympic Council of Asia, Sheikh Ahmad, now also a holder of the powerful position as President of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC).

It is not surprising that most of the experts who follow IOC matters, and now especially the election campaign, describe the Sheikh as the ‘power player’ or ‘puppet master’ behind the scenes (or often quite openly). But what might seem strange to some is that the Sheikh is not promoting one of the two Asian candidates for the presidency. Instead, he is very forcefully pushing Bach as his favorite. Some speculate that the Sheikh wants to remain the top Olympic figure in Asia, so he might not then want to be overshadowed by an IOC President from his own continent. Also, he is shrewd enough to realize that his own position of strength is likely to require a strong alliance with the Europeans.

To provide some symmetry, Bach is known to have important business interests precisely in Kuwait. Now, this alliance between Bach and Sheikh Ahmad might not in itself be awkward, even leaving aside what is known about the Sheikh’s reputation. But when one starts seeing that Bach is far from an uncontroversial person even in his own country, then one might begin to wonder. For instance, it has been noted that Bach can be seen as a protégé of two persons whose reputations are not exactly snow-white. One is the former IOC President Samaranch, and other is Horst Dassler, son of the Adidas initiator Adi Dassler and founder of the ‘corruption giant’ ISL, the company in the middle of all the scandals involving FIFA. And Bach himself has often been described as ‘extremely ambitious’ and obsessed with the IOC Presidency.

So while Bach may have his own detractors, and while his backing from the Sheikh may be a negative factor for some people, it is generally seen that having the support of the Sheikh is on balance a clear advantage, whether one seeks the IOC Presidency, some other top position in sports, or the rights to host a really major sports event. Then the question arises: given that the connection between Bach and the Sheikh might be seen as extended into a triangle also comprising the IHF President, and given Bach’s German origin, would his election as IOC President be advantageous for handball, or would one instead be concerned about what the ‘triangle’ says about his suitability?

Finally, if you are interested in matters related to the IOC, FIFA, governance and corruption in sports, and especially if you read German, then I would strongly recommend the web site and writing of the German investigative reporter Jens Weinreich at www.jensweinreich.de I know Jens from occasional collaboration, and he is one of the foremost experts and serious investigators in his field. His research and writing will give you access to much more of a detailed story than I could ever bring you.

While much of our own focus in recent time has been on the PanAmerican qualifying for the World Championship next December, the rest of the world has also finished up their similar events. The final piece of the puzzle was the European qualifying last week, so now we had the draw today in Serbia for the World Championship.

The ‘other’ continents had already established their participation. Africa has four slots, because Angola, like Brazil for PanAmerica, earned an extra one. Their teams are Angola, Tunisia (who have progressed a lot in recent years), D.R. Congo, and Algeria. Australia is the ‘usual’ representative for Oceania. Asia has three slots, all of which were taken by East Asian teams: Korea, China and Japan. So after the PanAmerican contingency is now known to be Brazil, Argentina, the Dominican Republic and Paraguay, it was up to Europe to fill the remaining slots.

The European Handball Federation (EHF) generally takes an easy way out when it comes to World Championship qualifying. It is not a secret that the EHF would prefer to have this qualifying based directly on the results of the most recent European Championship, which is really the approach taken in the other continents. And is also seen as a burden for the teams, especially on the men’s side, if full-fledged qualifying through group play, which is the approach used for the European Championship, were to be organized.

So the current method is a compromise, under which the three medal winners (Montenegro, Norway and Hungary) are directly qualified together with the host country Serbia. The remaining participants from the previous European Championship then enter straight into a home and away ‘knock out’ competition together with the survivors from a qualifying event among the ‘lesser’ nations. This approach really depends a bit much on the luck of the draw, together with the caprices of playing just two games. So the losers tend to find it a bit of a ‘double whammy’, as their chances of coming back next time will depend mostly on the draw and the risk of encountering one of the top teams.

This time, as always happens, there were a couple of surprises. Sweden had been a perennial participant in World and European Championships for a number of years now, but this time they were weaker than usual and got kicked out by Poland. But the real surprise was the elimination of Russia, who found themselves on the outside for the first time in many decades. They seemed to have it all sewn up after an away win against the Netherlands, but the Dutch women shocked everyone with an amazing 33-21 victory in the return game. France had to struggle a bit, getting only a tie at home against Croatia, but they came back stronger in the away game. The remaining match-ups had a clearer outcome.

One might now have liked to see some really exciting groups after today’s draw for the World Championship, but I think most people will find the groupings rather boring and predictable. Presumably we will in the end be in for some surprise(s), but I would be hard pressed to speculate about one. The format is such that the four best teams in each group will qualify for the round of 16, with group winners each encountering a fourth-placed team etc. In almost every group it seems rather clear which four teams will advance, and only the internal ranking among them would then be the cause of some suspense. One might wish for teams such as Argentina or Tunisia to surprise a higher-ranked team, but for now it seems that the only battle will be in group B between rivals China and Japan. Here are the complete groups so that you can start your own speculation and possibly disagree with me:

A: Montenegro, Netherlands, France, Korea, D.R. Congo, Dominican Republic
B: Denmark, Brazil, Serbia, China, Japan, Algeria
C: Norway, Poland, Angola, Spain, Argentina, Paraguay
D: Hungary, Germany, Romania, Czech Republic, Tunisia, Australia

Through 2 match days Group A seems fairly settled.  As expected, Brazil is the class of the group and is 2-0-0 after two easy wins over USA (44-10) and Costa Rica (59-7).  The Dominican Republic appears to be the second best side after it’s 27-11 victory over the USA, but that will likely be known for sure when they take on Mexico later today.  Team USA gets a solid chance for a victory when they take on Costa Rica at 7:00 PM (East Coast Time)

The picture in Group B is still a little muddled.  Argentina looks to be on course for first place with wins over Canada (37-14) and Paraguay (32-10), but there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot separating the other four sides.  Paraguay and Uruguay have a leg up due to their victories over Venezuela and Canada respectively, but that could change today as Canada takes on Paraguay and Venezuela takes on Uruguay.

Credit is due to The Pan American Team Handball Federation (PATHF) and the Dominican Republic Federation for providing steady updates to the competition.  Here’s some links to help you keep up to speed.

PATHF Competition site:  Link   (Includes links to rosters, score sheets and on demand videos for each match)

Dominican Federation Website:  Link  (Appears to be posting the scores first)

PATHF Web Stream Channel:  Link  (While the video quality certainly could be better, almost every match has been shown live)

This championship tournament will be played in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, during the period June 1-8. Accordingly, the draw was held there this morning. Because of Brazil’s favorable placement in the most recent World Championship, PanAmerica is now entitled to field FOUR participants in the next World Championship in Serbia in December this year. This means that there is perhaps more importance than usual attached to the draw, as the top two teams in each group of five will already be qualified for the World Championship, regardless of what subsequently happens in the semi-finals and the medal games.

It seems that this Women’s PanAmerican Championship has already caused some controversy at the qualifying stage. With the new format recently adopted by PATHF, there should now be a ‘guarantee’ for a more serious competition for the slots among the North and Caribbean countries (NorCa). Seven teams would normally be eligible to compete for four slots in the PanAmerican event, although this time one of the slots was already set aside for the hosts from the Dominican Republic. However, it gradually became clear that neither Cuba, nor Greenland would try to qualify. Economic realities undoubtedly had a lot to do with that.

But when it was announced, far too late, that Puerto Rico also would refrain from participating, then it left precisely four teams eligible for the four slots, so the idea of a qualifying tournament became meaningless. The problem was, however, that the Puerto Rican decision came so late that the other teams were all set to travel, in some cases having already spent money on the tickets. Apparently, PATHF has now belatedly realized that this is intolerable, and tangible punishment has been introduced.

In the south, there was also an impression of seemingly strange rules for the qualifying. But the principle is that the ‘big five’ (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) compete for four slots, while one slot is set aside for the emerging handball countries. So this caused Chile to be eliminated, even though they beat Venezuela in the qualifying event that combined both the big and the emerging nations.

For the draw, it was obvious that Brazil and Argentina would be in the top performance row. Similarly, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic were put in the second row and Mexico together with Venezuela in the third row, on account of their positions in the most recent PATHF women’s championship. The remaining four teams did not participate then, and they appear to have been seeded on the basis of earlier participation, with Canada and USA in the fourth row, leaving Paraguay and Costa Rica for the lowest category. Rows 5, 4, 3 and 1 would be drawn first, and then the Dominican Republic would have the established host prerogative of choosing one of the two groups.

It would seem that, in the third row, Mexico would be a more difficult opponent than Venezuela. In the fourth row, I would not even venture a guess as between USA and Canada, especially without knowing what kind of team USA will be able to field. In the fifth row, Paraguay undoubtedly would the strongest, but probably not good enough to compete seriously for a semifinal spot. Similarly, it might matter less if the hosts, or any other team, would find themselves paired with Brazil or Argentina, as both these two teams would seem safe bets to advance. So one could speculate that the Dominican Republic might avoid the group with Mexico, but perhaps they instead had some suspicions about problems against Paraguay or Canada, because they did choose the group with Mexico, USA and Costa Rica. This group also includes Brazil, which probably will the opponent for USA in the very first round. The complete draw:

Group A: Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, USA and Costa Rica

Group B: Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Canada and Paraguay

Again, the top two teams in each group qualify for the World Championship. It is hard to be optimistic from a USA perspective. Mexico will be tough enough, but I would certainly have preferred Uruguay instead of having to face the physically strong home team, who obviously will also have a lot of crowd support.