After fourth place at the home European Championships and silver at the Olympics, the German handball players want even more at the World Cup. Here’s how to watch the title mission live.
32 teams, three countries and five cities: The Handball World Cup will take place from January 14th to February 2nd, 2025. The German team is also back in the game and wants to finally win its first major title since the European Championship triumph in 2016 and the first World Cup title since the home tournament in 2007.
At the last tournaments, national coach Alfred Gislason’s team came very close. The home European Championship last January only ended in the semi-finals for the DHB team. However, due to two painful defeats, the players ultimately had to settle for fourth place. They even made it to the final at the Olympic Games in the summer. In the final, however, they clearly lost against Denmark and won the silver medal.
At the World Cup, the players around captain Johannes Golla now want to go one step further. t-online has all the information you need to know about the title hunt.
So far, only the Germans’ opponents in the preliminary round have been confirmed: The game kicks off against Poland on January 15th at 8:30 p.m. Two days later, the DHB team will face Switzerland at 8:30 p.m. The preliminary round ends against the Czech Republic on January 19th at 6 p.m.
Should the Germans reach the main round, they would face the first three placed teams from Group B. Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and Denmark play there. The games would take place between January 21st and 25th. A possible final round would start on January 27th and end with the final on February 2nd.
Who is broadcasting the Handball World Cup?
All of the German team’s games will be shown on public television on ARD and ZDF and therefore free of charge. At the same time, the broadcasters also offer live streams in their respective media libraries. ARD will broadcast the first and third preliminary round games against Poland and the Czech Republic, while ZDF will show the second preliminary round game against Switzerland.
In a possible main round, ZDF would then play twice and ARD only once. The distribution for the final round has also already been determined. ARD would show the quarter-finals and finals, while ZDF would broadcast the semi-finals.
All World Cup games will now only be shown on the paid streaming service Sportdeutschland.TV. The Eurosport channel broadcasts some selected games.
The Handball World Cup will be held in three countries: Denmark, Croatia and Norway. The game will be played in five different arenas in five cities. Croatia has the largest share: with the Arena Zagreb in the capital, the Varaždin Arena in the city of the same name and the Žatika Sport Center in Poreč, the country provides three of the five venues.
Denmark and Norway only provide one arena each. In Denmark the games take place at the Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning. Norway is deploying its Unity Arena in the capital Oslo. The final will also take place there.
The German team will play its preliminary round games from January 15th to January 19th in Herning, Denmark. If she reaches the main round, she would not have to travel, because the possible main round group of the Germans would also be in Herning. The DHB team would only have to travel to Oslo for a possible quarter-final. The German team only sees Croatia in the event of an early exit, i.e. in the event of a consolation round.
The tournament is divided into a preliminary round, a main round and a final round. The preliminary round consists of eight groups with four teams each. The top three teams in each group make it to the main round.