Squad for the 2025 Handball World Cup
These DHB stars want to become world champions
January 8, 2025 – 2:53 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
The German squad for the Handball World Cup is full of experience and plenty of talent. These 19 DHB professionals are supposed to win their first world title since 2007.
From January 14th things will get serious for the German national handball team. Then the World Cup begins, which will be held in Croatia, Denmark and Norway.
After fourth place at the home European Championships last January and the silver medal at the Olympic Games in Paris in August 2024, national coach Alfred Gíslason’s team now wants to be there until the final on February 2nd in Oslo and land the really big coup.
Germany will face Poland (January 15th/8.30 p.m.), Switzerland (January 17th/8.30 p.m.) and the Czech Republic (January 19th/6 p.m.) in preliminary group A in Herning, Denmark. The first three teams reach the main round, which the DHB selection would also complete in Herning.
The preparation didn’t go well and Gislason had to cope with two failures. Sebastian Heymann and Jannik Kohlbacher (both Rhein-Neckar Löwen) were ruled out for the final round due to injuries. For this purpose, the national coach nominated pivot Tim Zechel from SC Magdeburg and backcourt player Lukas Stutzke (TSV Hannover-Burgdorf). Both already gained World Cup experience in 2023, but were recently not taken into account at the Olympics.
After the failures of Heymann and Kohlbacher, there are still twelve Olympic heroes in the World Cup squad, which is led by captain Johannes Golla. The veterans also include goalkeeper Andreas Wolff, left winger Rune Dahmke and Christoph Steinert.
As always, many hopes rest on playmaker Juri Knorr and backcourt ace Renars Uscins, whose star rose at the Olympics. Kai Häfner, who retired from the national team, and Tim Hornke are also missing from the silver medalists in Paris.
16 out of 19 is the decisive formula for the tournament, because Gislason is spoiled for choice in every World Cup game to name 16 players from his 19-player squad for the score sheet.
You can see the entire squad in the photo show here or above.