“GALLEGO WAKE UP”: TOP coaches AGAINST “7 on 6” rule!

German magazine Handball Woche made a big survey among the TOP handball coaches in order to find out their opinion about controversal “7 on 6 rule” which was establish in 2016. Chance to play without goalkeeper in situation 7 on 6 caused a lot of changes to the tactics of handball and clear majority of opinion is negative.

Olivier Krumbholz, Thorir Hergeirsson, Ambros Martin, Morten Soubak, Jorge Duenas, Henk Groener, Herbert Müller, Leszek Krowicki, Kim Rasmussen, Per Johansson, Martin Albertsen from women’s handball and their colleagues Glenn Solberg, Gudmundur Gudmundsson, Lino Cervar, Ljubomir Vranjes, Chema Rodriguez, Manolo Cadenas, Guillaume Gille, Javier Zupo, Zoran Roganovic, Velimir Petkovic, Filip Jicha, Javier Pasqual, Talant Dujshebajev, Maik Machulla, Danilo Brestovac, David Davis, Iouri Schewtsow, Jordi Ribeira, Aron Kristjánsson, Nikolai Jacobssen, Erlingur Richardsson, Raul Gonzalez, Roberto Parrondo, Dagur Sigurdsson, Ola Lindgren, Daniel Kubes, Petr Kukucha from men’s handball have been a part of the survey.

Summary of results:
30 of 39 coaches want to return to the old rule, four coaches want changes to the new rule, five want to keep the rule as it is.

The main arguments and their number of mentions:
Opponents of the new rule:
23 two-minutes suspensions no longer mean punishment
22 the game became slower/less dynamic
22 shots on the empty goal are unattractive
21 Handball in general became less attractive
17 The basic idea/style of playing handball has changed negatively
15 tactical options/variants are restricted
15 no more chance for offensive defense variants
14 permanent one-player-advantage is negative
12 no more 1-against-1 situations
11 games got boring
9 less creativity in attack
7 defense plays harder because it has no consequences if you can immediately use an additional court player despite a suspension
6 negative impact on young talent training/loss of talents
6 degradation of goalkeepers’ performance
6 spaces are too narrow for seven court players, the court is too small
6 referees allow teams with 7-against-6 to attack for too long
5 injury risk for goalkeepers much higher
5 In training, time is lost for more important things
5 weaker teams have no advantage

Proponents of the new rule:
7 additional tactical option
3 weaker teams have better chances
2 creation of new player types