Nightmare tickets at the European Handball Championships
This is Germany’s way to the final
Updated 12/12/2025 – 10:55 amReading time: 2 minutes
The German national team is starting its next title mission at the European Handball Championships. But the way there will be hard.
The German national handball team has been waiting for a major international title since winning the European Championship in 2016. At the 2024 Olympic Games, the team under national coach Alfred Gíslason celebrated their greatest success to date with the silver medal, but narrowly failed to win the title.
The DHB team now wants to start the next title mission at the European Championships in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. But the road to the European Cup will be extremely rocky. “It will be the most difficult tournament I have ever played,” said national coach Gíslason recently in an interview with the European Handball Federation (EHF) about the 2026 European Handball Championships.
The 66-year-old looks back on a long and successful coaching career – and therefore knows a difficult task when he sees it. “Our goal at every tournament is to reach the semi-finals. But this time it’s different – the first goal is simply to reach the main round, ideally with a clean slate. That will be difficult enough,” said the Icelander about the difficult path that Germany could face on the way to the final at the European Handball Championships.
The reason for Gíslason’s warning words lies in the draw. Germany already faces three extremely tricky opponents in preliminary group A: Austria, Serbia and Spain. To put it into perspective: The last duel with Spain took place in the semi-finals of the Olympic Games. Germany narrowly prevailed with 25:24. Spain ultimately secured bronze.
Germany had two successes against Austria in the European Championship and Olympic qualification, but had to settle for a draw in the second game of the European Championship qualification and at the home European Championship in 2024. In the last duel against Serbia, the DHB team struggled to a narrow 34:33 victory at the 2023 World Cup.
The results make it clear: surviving the preliminary round will not be a walk in the park for the German team. Only the two best teams in the preliminary group advance. If they make it into the main round, there is a risk of duels with the reigning world champion and Olympic champion Denmark and a rising Portuguese team that Germany had to admit defeat to in the quarter-finals of the 2025 World Cup. Defending champion France could also wait in the German group. In the main round, only the best two teams advance.
Teams from the other half of the tournament tree would then lurk in the final round. Possible opponents in the semi-finals: Croatia around ex-national coach Dagur Sigurðsson, who led the DHB team to the European Championship title in 2016, or co-host Sweden.