Handball in Africa becoming bigger and bigger according to the latest results of Egyptian handball team. Strategic work brought the gold medal from the last Youth World Championship in North Macedonia to Cairo. A month before, the junior team won the bronze at the last competition of the generation 1998. With the eighth place won by senior team at IHF World Championship 2019 in Germany and Denmark, it is clear that something positive happening in the African North.
The president of the Egyptian handball Federation Dr. Hesham Nasr, talked for Handball-Planet.com about their plans, but also organization of the IHF World Championship 2021, for the first time with 32 national team, which should be a milestone for Egyptian, but also globa handball community.
- We are talking about constructions, buit we almost finish three new venues for Egypt 2021. All of them are around the border of Cairo. We are also doing some renovation of the oldest and biggest Cairo’s stadium. Alexandria and Arab’s venues will be ready in the next two-three months.
Organization of the tournament is much more demanding with the new system of 32 teams instead of 24.
- We are dealing with organization of proper accommodation and transportation for all the teams and our goal is to make the best we can. For sure, all the venues and facilities will be in good condition.
Hussein Ali Zaki about Egyptian success: Our secret is a big heart
One of the venues will become a home of Egyptian Handball Federation…
- It will be a good one, the whole complex with two-three training halls, small hotel for the teams and building for administration and African handball Academy. One of the offices will be used by IHF in the same building. It will be amazing thing for us and the biggest legacy of the tournament.
Egypt making good results in all the categories in the recent period…
- We have active plan and we made success with junior and youth team. Also, we won the 8th place at the last senior WCh, which is a very good result in our opinion. We need more hard work to reach the level necessary for medal podium at World Championship, but we are doing our best with the new generation which are coming.
What is the “secret” of success?
- We give our young player chance to work on quality camps, some teams going to Europe where they are gaining valuable experience. Mrs Alaa Elsayed is very important as director of the team, who are making good plans. Our staff members are real specialists, we have good coaches. Last one was David Davis, and now, we are working with Roberto Parrondo, who is World Handball Coach 2019. Both of them are TOP coaches with a lot of good job here. We always put Egyptian coaches around them in order to learn something new.
The receipt is clear. “Take Spaniard”…
- If you see EHF EURO event, you will see that Spanish coaches are everywhere. The best coaches coming from Spain. They are close to our system, we aren’t like Scandinavians, so we are choosing them, their habits are similar to us as we are at Medditeranean. We hope to be again among TOP 8 next January at World Championship. We will try even more, but we will need a lot of work.
Interesting start of the year will be African Championship in Tunisia…
- It is always like this in Africa. Tunisia and Egypt are favorites, but don’t forget Algeria who is establishing new team, Angola, also Morroco is good. We hope for a good matches. We know that people wait for our clash against Tunisia. We want to go to Tokyo directly. If not, we still have a chance through qualifications – concluded the chairman of Egyptian handball.
