France seeks revenge or Denmark aims to extend its success: a preview of the 2025 World Championship.
In addition to these two cities, matches will also be held in the Norwegian town of Bærum, as well as in the Croatian cities of Varaždin and Zagreb. The tournament will be hosted in Bærum, which will serve as the capital of the tournament, where one of the semifinals, the match for third place, and the final will take place. The Telenor Arena in this city can accommodate 15,000 spectators.
In the new cycle, six months after the Games
This year's World Championship will be the first in the new Olympic cycle leading up to Los Angeles 2028, taking place six months after the Paris 2024 Games. It is worth noting that the men's handball tournament in the "City of Love" ended unexpectedly.
The champions of the previous Olympics in Tokyo 2020, the medalists of the last World Championships, and the current European champions 2024 from France, had a very unconvincing group stage, finishing only in fourth place in their group, and lost in the quarterfinals in a tense match against Germany – 34:35.
Thus, the legend of the French national team, Nikola Karabatić – a three-time Olympic champion, ended his career without a medal at his home Olympics. This was his sixth Olympic Games, making Karabatić the record holder for the most Olympic appearances and the only handball player in history to compete in six Olympics.
As for the German team, they reached the final, where they lost to Denmark and had to settle for a silver medal. Interestingly, almost all playoff matches ended with a "+1" point difference in favor of one of the opponents, except for the quarterfinal match between Norway and Slovenia, where the Slovenians won 33:28 (+5). The more surprising was that in the final, Germany faced Denmark, where the Scandinavians completely broke the resistance of their opponents, decisively defeating the German team 39:26.
Thus, the Danes returned to the Olympics eight years after their victory at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Games. At Tokyo 2020, they won silver, losing to the French team in the final.
Speaking of the Paris Games, it is also important to highlight... the Hungarian women's team, which reached the quarterfinals under the guidance of Ukrainian specialist Volodymyr Holovin. In the quarterfinals, the coach from Odesa's team lost to Sweden (32:36). This was the only Ukrainian involvement in the handball tournament of the 2024 Games.
Favorites of the tournament
Besides the Olympics in Paris, the Danes have won the last three World Championships in 2019, 2021, and 2023. At the European Championship 2024, they secured a silver medal, losing only to the French team in the final. However, the Danes can be called favorites for this year's World Championship with great caution. It is known that a new Olympic cycle is usually associated with a team reset, and yesterday's champions take a break and do not show high results.
For instance, at the 2017 World Championship, the 2016 Olympic champions from Denmark were eliminated in the round of 16 by Hungary – 25:27. And at the 2022 European Championship, which took place six months after the Tokyo Games (postponed to summer 2021), the Olympic champion French team only finished in fourth place, losing both in the semifinals and in the bronze medal match.
The Danish team is likely experiencing an emotional downturn. Moreover, legendary players such as top scorer Mikkel Hansen and goalkeeper Niklas Landin have retired. However, the team's leader and the most valuable player of the handball tournament at the 2024 Games, pivot Mathias Gidsel (who scored 11 goals in the final match against Germany and holds the overall scoring record in the Olympic tournament with 62 goals in Paris 2024) asserts that his team is fully prepared for the 2025 World Championship.
Is this really the case? We will find out soon enough.
Germany and others
Germany will likely want to redeem themselves after their failure in Paris. The German handball team has only won the Olympic Games once in history, at the home Olympics in Berlin 1936. Since then, the team has reached the final of the men's handball tournament at the Olympics three times but has consistently lost. In 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, they won the bronze medal.
The Germans also fell just short of a medal at the home Euro 2024, which took place exactly one year ago in January. In the semifinals, they lost to Denmark, and in the third-place match, they were defeated by the Swedish handball team.
However, in Paris, the German team overachieved. After the 2016 Games, the team went eight years without winning any medals at world or European championships or the Tokyo Olympics. The main hero of the German team at the Paris Games was their incredible goalkeeper Andreas Wolff.
Meanwhile, the Spanish national team has been impressively stable, winning bronze medals at the last two Olympics and World Championships. In terms of their Olympic history, this team has been a medalist only five times, and all of those instances were consistently bronze.
Will the team be able to transition smoothly from the Paris Olympic cycle to the new one leading to Los Angeles 2028? This is currently the main question worrying handball fans – not just the Spanish ones, and not just regarding the Spanish team. However, the trend for the Spaniards is positive. Since their victorious Euro 2020, the team has hardly stepped out of the medals in major competitions, with the sole exception being Euro 2022.
Ultimately, the Slovenian team can be considered a revelation of the Games. The team reached the semifinals of the Olympic tournament and finished in fourth place overall. Prior to Paris 2024, the Slovenians had only medaled once in World and European Championships, and that was relatively long ago, with silver at the home Euro 2004 and bronze at the 2017 World Championship in France.
Will the Slovenians be able to return to the podium of the World Championship in eight years? It is quite possible, given that post-Olympic World Championships are always unpredictable.
It is also worth noting that in addition to France, traditionally strong teams such as Sweden and Norway fell just short of the semifinals and medal contention in Paris. Scandinavian teams should certainly not be underestimated. The Egyptian team, the strongest non-European team that occasionally achieves success at world championships, also deserves attention from fans.
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the team reached the semifinals, finishing in fourth place and repeating their success from the 2001 World Championship. In the last two World Championships, 2021 and 2023, the team consistently finished in seventh place, while at the Paris 2024 Games, they concluded in fifth place.
With two group stages
The World Championship will feature 32 teams, which will be divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each in the first stage. Of these, the 24 strongest teams (3 from each group of 4) will advance to the next round, where they will be divided into 4 groups of 6 teams. At this stage, teams will compete for 1st and 2nd places in the final standings and a spot in the quarterfinals.
The top eight teams will advance to the playoffs, where they will compete in an elimination format for the title of world champion.
Additionally, there will be a tournament for the group’s underdogs, who will compete for the 25th to 32nd places and vie for the Presidential Cup.
Bookmakers favor Denmark
Bookmaker analysts believe in Denmark's victory, with an average winning coefficient of 1.80. The second clear favorite for victory is the French team at 3.75.
According to analysts, the teams of Norway (10 to 1), Sweden (13), Croatia (15), Germany (17), and Spain (19) have significantly lower chances of winning. Iceland's team has a winning coefficient of 31 to 1, while the odds for