At the World Cup in Denmark, Croatia and Norway, the German national handball team will face hosts and top favorites Denmark in the main round, the previous Cinderella story of the tournament, Italy, and main round returnees Tunisia. Everything about the German Group I.
Things are happening in quick succession: from Tuesday onwards there will be a match in the intermediate round every two days. The two best teams in each main round group reach the fourth finals. This is what the groups look like (as of January 18th):
| Group I | Group II | Group III | Group IV |
|---|---|---|---|
Denmark | France | Portugal | Slovenia |
Italy | Austria | Norway | Iceland |
Tunisia | Netherlands | Spain | Croatia |
| Germany | Hungary | Sweden | Egypt |
| open | Qatar | open | open |
| open | open | open | open |
The game plan is based on the teams’ placings in the preliminary round and will be determined after the German game against the Czech Republic on Sunday (6 p.m., live on Erste and on sportschau.de). If Germany comes first in Group A, they will face Denmark on Tuesday, Italy on Thursday and Tunisia on Saturday.
The live games of the main round
ARD and ZDF will broadcast the three German main round games. Two games are shown on ZDF, one on Erste, the exact division has not yet been determined.
Denmark – the invincibles
Hosts, defending champions, top favorites – the Danish star ensemble could play for the title with its understudy, won three World Cups in a row and is now 31 games unbeaten in World Cup tournaments.
Even without the former world handball players Mikkel Hansen and Niklas Landin, who ended their careers in the national team, the Danes around the reigning world handball player Mathias Gidsel (Füchse Berlin) are sweeping through the tournament so far: 47:22 against Algeria, 32:21 against Tunisia, 39: 20 against Italy.
Be it Gidsel, Flensburg’s Simon Pytlick and Emil Jakobsen or goalkeeper Emil Nielsen from FC Barcelona – coach Nikolaj Jakobsen’s team has a world class presence in every position. The DHB team is an outsider here, also due to its previous appearance in the tournament and the most recent encounter with Denmark in the 2024 Olympic final, which the Danes easily won 39:26.
Italy – already magical
For Italy, reaching the main round in their first World Cup participation in 28 years is already a great success. Never before has an Italian men’s national team won two games at a Handball World Cup. This time it worked, and even safely: 32:25 against Tunisia, 32:23 against Algeria.
The fans sang the Gianna Nannini classic “Notti magiche”, which was a big hit at the 1990 World Cup, and created a “dolce vita atmosphere” in the hall in Herning, as goalkeeper Domenico Ebner put it.
The 30-year-old from SC DHfK Leipzig, born in Freiburg, is looking forward to the duel with Germany. “Our whole country is looking forward to this. Italian handball was on the rocks, but so much has happened in the last eight years. We celebrate with the boys like a family, it’s just fun.”
Ebner (33% balls saved) and Leo Prantner (18 goals) from the German second division club HBW Balingen-Weilstetten are the Italians’ most important players so far. Riccardo Trillini’s team is underdogs against Germany, the Italians felt the reality check on Saturday evening: Denmark gave Ebner and Co. no chance at 39:20.
Tunisia – finally back in the main round
The Tunisian national handball team’s greatest success at a world championship was now 20 years ago. At the home World Cup in 2005, the team came fourth. Since then, Tunisia has finished in eleventh place twice, in 2019 in twelfth place. In the last two tournaments, the North Africans won the “President’s Cup” of the teams that were eliminated in the preliminary round, which was equivalent to 25th place.
Now we’ve finally managed to get into the main round again – and how. It remained exciting against Algeria until the last minute, and in the end the Tunisians prevailed 26:25 (13:9).
Eight of the 18 players in the Tunisian squad play in their homeland, with only a handful playing in Europe. In a balanced team, the most noticeable players so far are backcourt player Anouar Ben Abdallah (15 goals in three games) and pivot Islem Jbeli (14 goals), the goalkeeper performances of Yassine Belkaied (29 percent balls saved) and Fradj Ben Tekaya (21 percent). ) are still manageable. Germany is the clear favorite against the North Africans.