(The USA Women recently lost to Benin 36-16. I found out… via the Benin Federation Facebook page)
Getting Your Ass Kicked is Never Fun
In my brief and unspectactular National Team career there were way more defeats than victories (for the record the U.S. was 1-1-10 in my 12 International Games), but there is one defeat that sticks out way more to me than any other. And, that defeat was a 41-15 shellacking at the hands of Norway on March 16, 1993 at the World Championships. This match was played in front of maybe a 100 curious onlookers in Eskilstuna, Sweden as part of the consolation phase for the four 4th place teams from the Group Phase. A sort of miniature President’s Cup to give those 4th place teams a little more competition for their travels. At least that’s how the USA and South Korea surely looked at it. I’m guessing Austria and Norway felt a little bit differently having narrowly missed out on making the main round.
Anyway, we played poorly and Norway gave no quarter as turnover after turnover turned into fast break goal after fast break goal. It was ugly and embarrasing. At one point, this lowly role player, even started shouting in anger and frustration at one of his teammates. It was not pretty. If there is videotape of this match somewhere it should be burned and forgotten. At least that’s how I still feel about it 33 years later. To anyone out there who thinks, “Meh… Get beat by 16. Get beat by 26. What’s the difference?” I’m hear to tell you that I’ve been there and there is a big difference in terms of pride and in terms of match competitiveness.
Can You Hide Failure? In 1993? Yes, You Can.
A meaningless, forgotten match from years ago. Maybe 100 people witnessed or played in it. And, what was ever reported on it? I suppose the local papers reported the score. Maybe there was a paragraph write up in Norwegian newspapers. A match report was xeroxed and given to the IHF staff. Maybe the score was part of a quarterly summary the U.S. Team Handball Federation (USTHF) used to mail out back in the day. Maybe?
The internet had just barely arrived in 1993. Why, I don’t think I sent my first email out until later that year. Anecdotally, I remember saying, “This is awesome” as the realization soaked in that staff work was now going to be an order of magnitude easier. Yes, back in the day, the old saying, “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan” was in full force. And, with no media to report any handball equivalent of the Bay of Pigs you could definitely hide failure pretty effectively.
I hadn’t started this website yet, but I was naturally curious back in the day and hungered for more information that just wasn’t available. Here are a couple of instances where I found information lacking:
- USA Men’s performance in the 1990-91 Czechoslavakian League: I’ve cited this experiment numerous times, but I’ve never known exactly how well we actually did. For context, this was a remarkable experiment for a developmental team as the U.S. Men’s National Team played an entire season as an extra team in the top division of the Czechoslavakian league. I knew the results were bad, but I couldn’t even get a straight answer as to how bad exactly from my own teammates. Every few years I would do an internet search, but never found anything. Thanks to an AI facilitated search, I’ve now got an answer. The USA finished last with a record of 1-3-20. But, this litle data point is interesting: -106 goals in 24 matches An average 4 goal loss in those 24 matches. That means a lot of competitive matches. So, maybe not so bad, after all.
- 2002 Pan-American Championships Bronze Medal Match vs Greenland. The 3rd place match for the these championships under the old Pan-American Team Handball Federation (PATHF) were pretty important as the winner qualified for the World Championships The internet was more established by 2002, but websites like Wikipedia weren’t populated with as much data. The U.S. lost to Greenland, but as I recall the score of this match was kept on the down low. And, for good reason, the U.S. lost 27-7 (11-2). The magnitude of this defeat more than any other result in that timeframe shattered whatever linkage we still had with our respectable showing at the 1996 Olympics. This should have been a wake up call to rethink our entire strategy instead we kept on keeping on and even worked behind the scenes to help kick Greenland out of PATHF. Frustration mounted… and the idea of shaking things up in a Board Director Election didn’t seem so crazy a few years later.
The Only Handball News Site Starts to Report Bad Scores
Then in late 2006 I started this website and became another source of information. And, yes, when I found out scores. Scores that weren’t reported by USA Team Handball. I posted the results. This happened with both the Residency Programs at Cortland, NY and Auburn, AL. The results weren’t all bad, but they surely raised eyebrows on more than one occasion. The USA Women at Cortland couldn’t even win the Quebec Club League. The Men’s program at Auburn played the Alberta Jr team in a four match series in 2016. The USA won those matches… but, not very impressively against a Jr team from a Canadian province? These were the type of results that should have lead to reflection and course corrections, but instead they were typically downplayed or ignored. Eventually, changes were made, but keeping bad news quiet help delay the timetable for decision making. My opinion… anyway.
Can you Still Hide Scores in 2026? Moroccan Tournament Results
The U.S. recently played in a four nation friendly tournament in Smara, Morocco. Here are the results based on social media posts from Canada and Benin.
Here’s a photo of the team with a Bronze medal banner, so presumably they beat Morocco or played to a draw with better overall goal differential
And, if you’re looking for the results on the USA website or social media channels? Well, good luck with that. So, maybe you can still hide bad scorelines?
Results and Scorelines aren’t Everything… but, they are Something
Of course, one shouldn’t read too much into a couple of bad defeats. This is particularly true if you’re lacking supporting data. There weren’t any online video streams of the matches in Morocco. I haven’t seen a roster for the USA Team that played, but I recognized several athletes in the photo above. Most of the athletes appear to be relative newcomers and I don’t know exactly how long they’ve been training in Ft Pierce, FL or even if they’ve been training there at all.
And, then I don’t much about the teams they played. I’m guessing that the Canadian team was probably similar to the team that played the USA recently in PANAM Games Qualification. I’ve watched the streams of those matches. The video is of poor quality, but it seemed to me that the current Canadian team is a bit weaker now than it has been the past few years. For sure, I know even less about the Morocco and Benin Women’s teams other than a very top level review of their historical results. Neither team has ever been to a World Championships and have only sporadically even played in the African Handball Championships (Morocco 5 times and Benin only once back in 1979) Both sides, however, will be at the 2026 African Championhips in December so that will be a pretty good measuring stick. Morocco will even play Angola which has been the African qualifier at every Olympics since 1996.
A Ticking Clock…
All those caveats aside, a 36-16 loss to Benin and a 27-19 loss to Canada should raise some eyebrows. We’re one year and 8.5 months from playing in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. That’s not a lot of time. There are some solid athletes that have been recruited and are training in Florida, but only one newcomer (Jessica Kuster) made the recent PANAM Games qualification roster. And, then this developmental team has some rough losses against what appears to be some weak competition. Maybe there were some strong individual performances despite the not so great results. It’s possible.
But, the results still mean something and it’s a cause for concern. One could argue about how much of a concern… but, it’s a concern. As in, is there enough time for these athletes investing their time and energy to realistically make an Olympic team? And, if there isn’t… What are we hoping to accomplish down there in Florida on the Treasure Coast? I’m not a big fan of Residency Programs, but with the Women’s Program I recognized the need for a hail mary. Honestly, based on our current talent pool of veteran players and dual citizens I would have expected more breakthroughs at this point in time, but it hasn’t materialized yet. We’ll know a little more next month when a roster is selected for the North American & Caribbean Championships in Montreal. The clock is ticking.
Acknowledge and Report the Score
Lastly, anytime and anywhere a USA National Team plays a match against anybody just post the score. Failure to do so raises questions. VALID QUESTIONS. Even if the intent isn’t there, it’s suspicious and gives the impression that USA Team Handball is trying to hide something. Yes, to paraphrase Watergate, hiding the result… is worse than the result itself.