The Faker’s Guide to Olympic Handball

Handball is just one of the many unknown sports that have landed on these shores as part of the Olympic Games. I will not attempt to explain the basics of the game (British Handball produced a handy 2-page illustration: http://www.britishhandball.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/06/British-Handball-Game-Guide.pdf). Instead, I will try to provide the kind of insight into the Olympic handball tournament that you might need in order to appear knowledgeable even if you’ve only just discovered the sport. Particularly handy if you spend a long tube/bus journey sitting next to a Dane…

Men’s tournament

Main storyline: The previously all-conquering French humiliated themselves at January’s European Championship. Claude Onesta’s team will show up motivated, but will they be able to defend their title against a talented and confident Denmark?

Favourites: Denmark
Biggest rival: France
Outside bet for the Gold: Spain
Expectations for Britain: Managing to draw even one game would be one of the biggest shocks in handball history

Britain’s least bad player: Chris Mohr (playmaker)
Seven players to watch:
* Darko Stanić (goalkeeper, Serbia)
* Julen Aguinagalde (pivot, Spain)
* Gudjón Valur Sigurdsson (left wing, Iceland)
* Mikkel Hansen (left back, Denmark)
* Ivano Balić (playmaker, Croatia)
* Kim Andersson (right back, Sweden)
* Luc Abalo (right wing, France)

Five unmissable group games:
* Serbia – Croatia (31 July), repeat of their ferocious European Championship semi-final
* Denmark – Spain (31 July), repeat of the other semi-final from January
* Serbia – Denmark (2 August), repeat of the European Championship final
* Croatia – Denmark (4 August), two of the favourites vie for the top in the ‘group of death’
* Iceland – France (4 August), repeat of the final from Beijing

Every team in a sentence (in my predicted order of finish):
* Denmark – the perfect combination of stingy defence and multi-faceted attach, youth and experience, stars and role players, enthusiasm and confidence
* France – all the stars are still there, but are they still committed to the kind of suffocating defence that made France handball’s first-ever concurrent Olympic, World and European champions?
* Croatia – the talent level is unquestioned, but too often Croatia rises and falls on mental aspects and team chemistry
* Spain – there is quality all over the court, but someone will have to become a star for Spain to go from being a very good team to Olympic medallists
* Hungary – the addition of Barcelona captain László Nagy means there is finally a leader who could carry this team when the going gets tough
* Iceland – A last hurrah for the ‘golden generation’ but a repeat of the Silver from Beijing is unlikely
* Sweden – world-class players in almost every position, but for some reason the whole remains less than the sum of its parts
* Argentina – will be breaming with confidence after an excellent showing in last year’s World Championship, and the Simonet brothers will be fun to watch
* Serbia – expect them to come crashing back to earth after a surprising second-place finish on home soil at the European Championship
* Tunisia – will likely be fighting Argentina for the last quarter-finals place in Group A
* South Korea – it’s been a decade since they were last competitive at the highest international level
* Definitely-Not-Great Britain – probably the worst team to ever play handball at the Olympics

Women’s tournament

Main storyline: In May, Bojana Popović led her home team to a Champions League title (the sixth of her career). If she can lead outsider Montenegro to a medal in her last ever tournament, she will retire with a legitimate claim for the title of greatest female handball player of all time.

Favourites: Norway
Biggest rival: France
Outside bet for the Gold: Montenegro
Expectations for Britain: Capable of beating Angola to avoid a last-place finish

Britain’s least bad player: Lyn Byl (pivot)
Seven players to watch:
* Silvia Navarro (goalkeeper, Spain)
* Heidi Løke (pivot, Norway)
* Emiliia Turey (left wing, Russia)
* Andrea Penezić (left back, Croatia)
* Allison Pineau (playmaker, France)
* Katarina Bulatović (right back, Montenegro)
* Alexandra do Nascimento (right wing, Brazil)

Five unmissable group games:
* Norway – France (28 July), rematch of last year’s World Championship final
* Sweden – Norway (30 July), repeat of the 2010 European Championship final
* Denmark – Norway (3 August), the women’s game’s two most successful nations go head-to-head
* Montenegro – Russia (5 August), could decide who tops Group A
* Norway – Spain (5 August), Larvik and Itxako took lumps out of each other in last year’s Champions League final and their players form the core of their respective national teams

Every team in a sentence (in my predicted order of finish):
* Montenegro – just too good a story for it not to finish with a place at the top of the rostrum
* Norway – the attack can get stagnant without playmaker Gro Hammerseng (on maternity leave) and the defence is weakened by the absence of specialist Tonje Larsen, but the concurrent Olympic, World and European champions are the overwhelming favourites
* France – always a contender, but will only go as far as their goalkeeping tandem will take them
* Denmark – more than a decade on, the Danish national team is still trying to emerge from the enormous shadow of the team that dominated the women’s game throughout the 1990s
* Spain – world-class players in every position, but the injury-forced absence of left back Nerea Pena might be the difference between Gold and going home empty-handed
* Croatia – the Balkan countries are emerging as a force in women’s handball and Croatia is right at the forefront of this movement
* Russia – a very exciting young generation is still taking its lumps in major competitions as it tries to live up to the generation that won three successive World Championships
* Brazil – some excellent players will ensure that they make life tough for the Europeans, but hard to see Brazil contending for a medal
* South Korea – typically a strong contender at the Olympics, but this Korea team seems to have been left behind by the top European sides
* Sweden – Linnea Torstenson cannot do everything by herself, so a repeat of the second place finish in the 2010 European Championship is unlikely
* Angola – will be determined to avoid defeat to Britain after losing at a friendly earlier this year
* Great Britain – more competitive than the men’s team, but still a long way behind the top nations

BEN SHAFRAN