Here’s some further analysis from Steve Pastorino’s second report from Brazil: http://www.usateamhandball.org/news/index.html?article_id=62

[i]“President Manoel Luiz Oliveira (BRA) has the thankless task of organizing this region on a shoestring budget. Fortunately for him, the Brazilian federation and professional league are a joint operation – allowing him to leverage the National Team, all Club teams and grass roots programs for sponsorship, television rights, host cities for events (like the congress we're attending) and growth. It's safe to say that Brazil's domestic and international success underwrites much of the Pan Am federation's activities.”[/i]

– As one who has often been critical of PATHF’s lack of transparency and poor coordination, let me give credit where credit is due. Brazil carrying the weight for the rest of PATHF is to be commended.

[i]“Dr. Moustafa, originally from Egypt, is here campaigning for re-election as president of IHF.”[/i]

– The election will be next June at the IHF Congress in Egypt. One country, one vote, so a vote from Guatemala is as good as a vote from the U.S., Sweden or Germany. Surely, the Europeans will propose an alternate candidate. It remains to be seen as to whether the fallout from the Asian Olympic Qualification fiasco will doom his candidacy.

[i]“Brazil will host the 3rd Men’s Club Championships beginning May 19, 2009 – an event in which the USA will look to field a team for the first time ever.”[/i]

– It will be interesting to see if the U.S. does in fact send a team as there will be a number of financial and logistical hurdles to overcome. For instance if the U.S. National Champion is sent the timing of the National Champions (first week in May) doesn’t support the tight turnaround. Funding to send a team to Brazil isn’t cheap either and it’s unlikely that any club would pay for this trip entirely on their own.

[i]“The USA plans to field teams in Men’s & Women’s U18 competition, as this event shall serve as the qualifying event for the 2010 Youth Olympics.”[/i]

– This is a step in the right direction for the U.S., but fielding competitive teams for these competitions could be challenging in under a year’s time. Additionally, the IOC has placed strict limit on the number of participants. The U.S. will only be allowed to send two teams out of all the team sports. http://www.gazette.com/sports/olympic_42409___article.html/athletes_springs.html So even should the U.S. qualify, there will likely be some conficts with Basketball and other Olympic sports.

Finally, while I appreciate the U.S. General Manager posting his informal notes, I’d still like to see the PATHF use their own website to spread the news to the entire hemisphere.

Everyone once in a while (more often than I’d like) I see a handball article that makes me shake my head in utter disbelief. The recent post on the IHF webpage, “AHF President Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad al-Sabah receives doctorate from Nippon Sports Science University of Tokyo” http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=57&idart=1600 is one such article.

The article further explains that he received the award for his outstanding contribution to the Development of the Olympic Movement and Asian Sports and [b]especially for his efforts in promoting [/b]sports science, [b]fair play[/b], world peace and the fight against doping in Sport.

Say what? This is the same individual who was primarily responsible for arguably the biggest scandal in Olympic Qualifying history. And we’re not talking just “handball history”, but Olympic Qualifying history for all sports. Not to rehash all the gory detail, but in short, Kuwait (where the Sheikh’s from) beat South Korea in a pivotal match with officiating so obviously biased that a replay tournament had to be restaged. The Sheikh also wasn’t an idle bystander in this controversy, but an active participant as evidenced by phone calls to the IHF President which resulted in the unqualified and biased Jordanian officials being assigned to the pivotal match as well as his stonewalling and challenging the eventual IHF reversal.

If you want more details just read this summary of the official arbitration court report:
https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.535

And don’t take just my opinion read what Bahrain and South Korea thought
Bahrain Handball Official Speaks Out Strongly Against Asian Federation: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.448
Korean Times Calls for AHF President to Resign: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.384

I’m all for moving on and letting bygones be bygones, but giving Sheikh al-Sabah an award for promoting fair play is simply beyond belief. What’s even more remarkable is it being awarded in Japan, where the controversial match was staged. Where normally reserved Japanese fans through objects on the court to protest on behalf of their rivals, the South Koreans. Just what on God’s green earth could possibly possess a Japanese University to make such a undeserved gesture?

The answer, of course, is the 2016 Olympic Games and Tokyo’s desire to host it. Sheikh al-Sabah is not only one of the 116 IOC voters that will vote on host city as head of the Olympic Council of Asia he had reportedly previously threatened https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.446 to derail Tokyo’s bid due to the Japanese Handball Federation’s participation in the replay tournament.

There was a plethora of news from the recent Pan American Team Handball Federation Congress held in Brazil. I’ve been busy catching up on all of the EHF Champions League games this past weekend, so I haven’t prioritized time to comment on Pan American activities. (By the by, last weekend was one of the best ever in my opinion with 4 of the 5 key matches coming right down to the wire. My only complaint is the ehfTV www.ehftv.com video stream quality. If they were 1,500 kbs I would be in fat city.)

Fortunately, USA General Manager, Steve Pastorino, had a couple of informative write-ups on the Congress. In his first article http://www.usateamhandball.org/news/index.html?article_id=61 a key paragraph diplomatically mentions some past PATHF shortcomings:

“Some major shortcomings of the past four years were acknowledged as well, such as PATHF’s inconsistency in managing a federation website, disciplinary inequities relative to incidents involving Brazil, Argentina and Canada, as well as the handling of issues of Greenland, Cuba, and Chile related to global competitions. More time will be spent on these topics in the following days.”

Here’s some further explanation of the paragraph’s contents

– inconsistency in managing a federation website: The PATHF website has often been down and only has been sporadically updated

– disciplinary inequities relative to incidents involving Brazil, Argentina and Canada: Brazil and Argentina had a game ending brawl at the PANAM Games which resulted in only minor penalties. Meanwhile Canadian coach Stefan Rusimov was suspended for two years for a spitting incident.

Brazil – Argentina Brawl: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.360
Canadian Coach incident: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.533

– as well as the handling of issues of Greenland, Cuba, and Chile related to global competitions:

The PATHF’s handling of Greenland’s membership status was mishandled in a number of ways. First, it could be argued that their PATHF membership should never have been downgraded in the first place. But when their membership was downgraded it was not communicated to Greenland in a timely manner, preventing them from appealing and attempting to qualify for the World PANAM Championships.

Commentary: Why the recent downgrading of Greenland’s membership is wrong: https://teamhandballnews.com/news312.html
Greenland PATHF Membership still unresolved: https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.500

In regards to Cuba and Chile the PATHF apparently mistakenly informed Chile that they would take Cuba’s place at the Men’s 2009 World Championships. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.614 Cuba, in fact, is still planning on participating.

Regular readers to this site have seen my previous references to Rugby and how I think that in some respects, USA Handball should try to model it’s development after USA Rugby. No analogy works 100%, but again Rugby has shown a path that hopefully USA Handball will one day follow. This example is 23 year old rugby star Takudzwa (Zee) Ngwenya. Originally from Zimbabwe, Ngwenya emigrated to the USA five years ago. In that five years he has gone from playing high school rugby in Plano, Texas, to amateur club rugby in Dallas, to the US National Team. And playing for the US National Team last year he was the bright spot of a 0-4 performance, with his try against South Africa being selected the “try (the rugby equivalent of a touchdown) of the year” by the International Rugby Board. This try, his overall performance, and his raw speed led to a contract to a professional contract with Biarritz in the French Top 14 League. And he’s not an afterthought at Biarritz, one of the top club teams in the world, where he is currently tied for first for most tries in the French League.

An equivalent trajectory in Handball terms would be Chavez HS in Houston, to the Houston Stars, to the US National Team, to HSV Hamburg in the German Bundesliga. The US has had a few Handball players play for European clubs, but usually for lower division clubs. Darrick Heath, who is arguably the most talented USA Handball player ever, followed a similar path to Ngwenya. He first started playing the sport in 1988 and 5 years later his strong performance on a winless USA Team at the 1993 World Championships led to a professional contract in Hungary.

But, while these paths were similar, the huge difference was that Darrick was 28 years old when he signed a contract and Zee today is only 23 years old with his best years still ahead of him. In fact, he’s still very much considered a work in progress as he is still learning the game and adjusting to competing on a weekly basis at the elite level. And the same was true with Darrick, but at the same time he was becoming a more experienced player he was also soon to start a long slow decline in physical athletic ability. I say long and slow, because even at age 43 he can still play– just ask the Canadians who played against him last year for PANAM Games qualification.

The big “what if?” that I’ve often pondered is what if Darrick had started playing Handball at age 17 instead of 23and then signed that first contract at age 22 instead of 28. How phenomenal of a player would he have been and what if the USA had had several other players also starting their professional careers at around age 22?

I’m not alone in this pondering. Some would even take it further to say that we need to find those talents at age 12 or even younger. It’s a tough sell, however, to get young kids excited to play a sport they’ve never seen when other sports with far more exposure and financial resources are also looking for athletes. But there are a few handball programs out there making inroads towards youth development. Houston, Chicago and Atlanta all have had decent youth programs. In fact Darrick Heath has been an integral part in the development of the Atlanta programs.

Starting these programs is clearly a challenge, but Rugby has clearly broken the code somewhat with several high school programs popping up in different parts of the country. A program, Play Rugby USA, has been established to encourage and provide support to schools interested in starting rugby. While USA Rugby still gets the bulk of their players from late starters (players often start playing in college) these youth programs have sprinkled in more seasoned players into those clubs. Instead of every Freshman starting from scratch a good number of them already understand the basics of the game.

While I don’t think we are ever going to see thousands of star athletes in the U.S. put down their basketballs and footballs for handballs when they are in the 12-18 age range, I do think it should be possible to expose thousands of youths to the sport. Maybe some spring time leagues with the carrot of participating on an under-19 Team USA will even draw in some really talented athletes taking a break from their primary sport. Then, if for whatever reason, their basketball, football or some other sport career doesn’t pan out like they thought it would they might immediately consider that Handball game they really excelled at. They’ll join a club and with the basics already down they might quickly develop into a good player.

To sum up, the path to national team success lies in finding the Handball Zee Ngwenya’s out there, exposing them to the sport and convincing them to make handball their chosen specialty. And to be really successful the finding, exposing and convincing will have to start as at young of age as possible.

Wikipedia Article on Takudzwa Ngwenya: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takudzwa_Ngwenya
Video of Ngwenya award winning try: http://rugbydump.blogspot.com/2007/10/takudzwa-ngwenya-smokes-bryan-habana.html
1993 Sports Illustrated profile of Darrick Heath: http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1138385/2/index.htm
Play Rugby USA article: http://www.americanrugbynews.com/artman/publish/Coaching_column/The_Play_Rugby_USA_model.shtml
Article on Wash DC youth Rugby club: http://www.washingtonrugbyclub.org/mainart/youth/hyde_school_rugby.htm
Play USA Rugby website: http://www.playrugbyusa.com/

At first glance it might seem to be a pretty big stretch to think Barack Obama’s recent election victory will have any impact on Team Handball in the United States. In all likelihood, President-Elect Obama probably doesn’t even know the sport exists. https://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.483

But a President Obama could play a major role in the single most important event upcoming for USA Team Handball in several years. This event is the IOC Congress next October in Copenhagen at which the 116 members of the IOC will vote to decide which city will host the 2016 Olympics. Should that city be Chicago, USA Team Handball will not only automatically qualify for the Olympics, it would also benefit from multiple marketing and fundraising opportunities.

And Barack Obama could very well be the X factor that puts Chicago over the top of Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo. Politics is not supposed to play a role in the selection of host city, but it would be foolish not to think that the United States ongoing war in Iraq along with George Bush’s lack of popularity around the world was at least some factor in New York’s non selection in 2005 for the 2012 games.

New York’s non-selection wasn’t a surprise, but London’s victory over Paris was. Many have attributed it to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s schmoozing with IOC members in the 48 hours preceding the vote. With only 116 people to engage with personality and political skills can be vital in swaying a few critical votes your way. Even simple gestures can have an impact. One such gesture was Vladamir Putin’s address in English to the IOC which helped get Sochi selected for the 2014 Winter Games.

No matter what your political leanings are you can’t help but walk away from a Barack Obama address without being impressed by his eloquence and ability to communicate. Nothing against the leaders of Brazil, Japan and Spain, but if Obama shows up in Copenhagen to push for Chicago’s candidacy it will not be a fair fight. The rest of the World is already celebrating his victory and I can already visualize the IOC members posing for pictures with the inspirational Obama.

A lot, of course, can happen in a year and there are other issues such as the USOC’s share of Olympic revenues that might prevent a Chicago Olympics. It’s never over till it’s over, but in my view it’s time to start drawing up the 8 year plan for USA Team Handball.

BBC Sport: “Chicago Olympic Hopes in the Balance”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/mihirbose/2008/10/chicagos_olympic_hopes_in_the.html
BBC Sport: “London Beats Paris to 2012 Games”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/front_page/4655555.stm

For the geographically challenged, Tórshavn is the capital of the Faroe Islands, an archipelago north of Scotland which is an independent nation in some respects and part of Denmark in others. In other words, the Faroe Islands (population: 48,000) are to the European Handball Federation what Greenland is to the Pan-American Handball Federation (PATHF). Except in this case the Faroes have little chance of rocking the boat in taking qualification spots for the World Championships from other nations in the much stronger EHF.

Geography aside, the news story here is the EHF’s dramatic change to its qualification format for the Euro 2010 Championship in Vienna. For prior competitions the EHF has used a two tiered format for qualification. On the top tier were the European sides that had qualified for the preceding World Championships and on the bottom tier were everybody else. While the top tier European teams were playing at the World Championships (the preceding January) the remaining teams in the bottom tier would play group round robins to whittle their number down.

For 2008 qualification, 26 nations played in 7 preliminary groups to shrink their number down to 12 teams. Those 12 teams were than combined with the bottom 6 European teams from the World Championship. That pool of 18 teams was then drawn into 9 pairings for 2 game aggregate playoffs. Those 9 winners joined the 5 best European teams from the World Championships, the defending champion and the host nation to fill out the 16 team field. Kind of complicated and much simpler for the top tier teams to qualify.

This time around the format is much simpler. The host (Austria) and the defending champion (Denmark) automatically qualify. Everybody else (36 nations) was drawn into 7 groups where they will play a home and away double round robin. The top 2 nations in each group head to Vienna, while the rest stay home. The games will be played over 10 designated match dates with the first 2 rounds taking place on October 29-30 and November 1-2 . In total there will be 10 rounds with the last matches taking place in the middle of June.

[b]Score one for the little guys[/b]

This change significantly increases the number of qualifying matches for the elite nations and gives smaller nations like the Faroe Islands multiple opportunities to host much larger nations in season long double round robin competition. Yes, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Bosnia and Italy will be making the journey to tiny Torshavn. So far, it’s been rough for the Faroes as they lost to Serbia 41-20 in and to Bosnia, 45 -28. Not good, but much better than the 42-11 shellacking Germany put on Bulgaria. Expect to see a lot of scores in that vein, but also expect to see some morale victories like tiny Luxembourg’s 30-21 loss against Olympic Champion’s France. Against a side entirely composed of amateurs, France only led 15-13 at halftime.

But, the key words here are “morale victory”, as the nature of Handball means that it’s virtually impossible for a hopelessly overmatched squad to put together the 60 minutes of Handball necessary to actually win. In soccer, however it’s a different story. The new handball qualification format is nearly identical to the European soccer qualification format and nations like Luxembourg and the Faroe Islands have beaten or tied larger nations. Readers to this website already know that I am not a fan of soccer, but even I can appreciate the novelty of a small nation like the Faroe Islands challenging a big nation. While I lived in France, the Faroes were drawn into a group with France and my curiosity was such that I made a special point of seeing the match. They hung with the French for a little bit by putting all 11 players in the box, but once 1 goal was scored the floodgates opened. With handball you can only put 1 guy in front of the goal, so no such similar strategy is possible.

[b]Why the new format? [/b]

It’s fairly obvious that the new format is attempting to copy the success of the very popular soccer qualification system that has been in place for many years in Europe for both the European and World Championships. These soccer matches are usually sell-outs as soccer is wildly popular and these matches have huge ramifications. Just ask England which failed to qualify for Euro 2008.
In a recent newsletter EHF President Tor Lian replied thusly to a question concerning the format:

“ There had been in depth discussions on this matter for some years and as is the case in any democracy, there were obviously differing opinions on the path we should take. Many countries were asking for more national team activities and top class international matches at home – the success of the national team is important for the growth of any sport. The nations wanted to give their fans a chance to see their national team in action more often, this system allows this. We also had reached a point where we wanted to take the development of the EURO product one step further.”

But, while this rational makes sense, it’s not clear whether the interest in Handball will support the new extended format. Additionally, the clubs at some point will surely speak more forcefully about the additional games and the additional risks to their players. The clubs aren’t entirely happy about major tournaments like the World Championships and the Olympics. How happy are they going to be if a top player has a season ending injury in Torshavn? Already, some of the National sides have sent less than 100% full strength sides due to players choosing to rest nagging injuries rather than risk aggravating injuries. Part of the reason, Luxembourg was able to hang with the French for awhile was that Karabatic and the Gille brothers didn’t play due to injuries. I’m guessing that if Kiel had been scheduled to play Hamburg on Thursday they all would have played.

Also unmentioned, is that this format seems to conflict with all the noise the EHF has made about the need to change the World Championships to a once every 4 year events. Really, if you’re complaining about too many games for elite players, adding an extended qualification format doesn’t make much a whole lot of sense.

For all of these reasons it remains to be seen if the new format will stick and the EHF has indeed emphasized that it as experiment. Based on input from all involved the EHF will assess whether this format will continue in the years to come.

Faroe Islands soccer team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands_national_football_team
Summary of first and second scores are here: http://www.eurohandball.com/ech/men/2010/round/2/Qualification
EHF-euro website: “Small miracle in Luxembourg”: http://www.ehf-euro.com/aut2010/news/singe-news/article/small-miracle-in-luxembourg.html
Euro 2010 Newsletter with entire EHF President interview on the new format: http://cms.eurohandball.com/ResourceImage.aspx?raid=5773