Men's World Championship 2011: Player Statistics

Although the VELUX EHF Champions League is on a winter break, a vast number of its players are currently absolutely focused on handball: On 13 January 2011 the 22nd Men’s World Championship will start in Sweden.

In total 181 players of VELUX EHF Champions League participants have been nominated by their national coaches – showing that the most important club competition in the world is really a class of its own.

Only four of the 24 VELUX EHF Champions League Group Stage clubs will not have players in Sweden, mostly related to the fact that “their” national teams did not qualify for the event.

This includes clubs like Chekhovskie Medvedi and St. Petersburg from Russia, Bosna Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) or Dinamo Minsk (Belarus).

652 players’ names are in the provisional lists of the 24 nations competing in Sweden – and obviously the heart of handball and especially the VELUX EHF Champions League is beating in Europe.

Only one player from Pan-America (Marco Antonio Oneto Zuniga/Chile/FC Barcelona-Borges), two players from Africa (Wissem Hman and Aymen Hammad/both Tunisia/both Montpellier HB), but no players from any Asian/Oceanian nation come from VELUX EHF Champions League clubs – even as nine Non-European countries have qualified for Sweden.

Taking in account the total number of 392 players nominated from the 14 European national coaches, almost every second of them plays for a VELUX EHF Champions League club (178).

The VELUX EHF Champions League club with the biggest number of World Championship participants is Rhein Neckar Löwen (Germany) with 15 players, followed by HSV Hamburg (Germany, 14) and the trio SG Flensburg-Handewitt (Germany), Renovalia Ciudad Real (Spain) and MKB Veszprem (Hungary) with each 13 players.

The club list continues with FC Barcelona-Borges (Spain, 12), Vive Targi Kielce (Poland, 11), Montpellier HB (France), Pick Szeged (Hungary), RK Zagreb (Croatia) and HCM Constanta (Romania) with 10 players each.

Surprisingly the reigning champion of the VELUX EHF FINAL4, German club THW Kiel, is only ranked twelfth in this list with nine World Championship players.

Chambery Savoie (France), KIF Kolding and AaB Handbold (both Denmark) each have seven players at the World Championship, followed by Cuatro Rayas Valladolid (Spain, 5), RK Celje (Slovenia, 4), Tatran Presov (Slovakia, 4), IK Sävehof (Sweden, 3) and Kadetten Schaffhausen (Switzerland, 3).

Rhein Neckar Löwen is also the club with the biggest variety of nations: Players from seven World Championship participants play for the Germans, followed by SG Flensburg-Handewitt and FC Barcelona-Borges (each 6), HSV Hamburg and THW Kiel (each 5).

The clubs with the biggest number of national players from one country are Kielce (ten Polish players) and Veszprem (ten Hungarian players), followed by Ciudad Real (eight Spanish players), Constanta (eight Romanian players), Zagreb (eight Croatians) and Szeged (seven Hungarians).

The club with the biggest number of national players from one country – but not the home country of the club – is Flensburg with six Danes.

Looking at the national teams with the biggest number of VELUX EHF Champions League players, Hungary is the winner with 22 of 28 players, followed by France (20), Spain (18), Denmark, Sweden and Poland (each 16), Croatia (15), Germany (13), Romania, Slovakia (each 10), Serbia (9), Norway (6), Iceland (6), Tunisia (2) and Chile (1).

Austria is the only European World Championship participant with only one VELUX EHF Champions League player (Viktor Szilagyi/Flensburg).

Find a list of all World Championship players from VELUX EHF Champions League clubs, sorted by Preliminary Round groups.

Group A: 53 VELUX EHF Champions League players

Excitement is guaranteed as current World and European Champions France and former World Champions Spain (2005) and Germany (2007) will meet in the first stage of the World Championship in Sweden.

Players of these three teams do not only meet with the national teams, they also know each others from VELUX EHF Champions League duels.

Nikola Karabatic, Thierry Omeyer, Jerome Fernandez (France), Iker Romero, Jose Hombrados, Arpad Sterbik (Spain) or Dominik Klein and Christian Sprenger (Germany) have raised the EHF Champions League trophy several times.

In this group also the two only African VELUX EHF Champions League players start: Hman and Hammad (Tunisia) are both playing for Montpellier. Bahrain and Egypt don’t have any player from VELUX EHF Champions League clubs in their team rosters.

Thanks to the three European top nations this groups contains 53 current VELUX EHF Champions League players – more than any of the other three groups of the Preliminary Round in Sweden.

And it could have been even more, but Frenchmen Daniel Narcisse (Kiel) and Guillaume Gille (Hamburg) will miss the World Championship due to injuries, like German Martin Müller (Löwen).

[Country (number of players/number of VELUX EHF Champions League players)]

France (28/20): Nikola Karabatic, Michael Guigou, Mickael Robin, Wiliam Accambray, Samuel Honrubia, Adrien di Panda (all Montpellier HB/FRA), Cyril Dumoulin, Xavier Barachet,Bertrand Roine, Gregory Detrez, Cedric Paty, Guillaume Saurina (all Chambery Savoie/FRA), Jerome Fernandez, Thierry Omeyer (both THW Kiel/GER), Didier Dinart, Luc Abalo (both Ciudad Real/ESP), Bertrand Gille (HSV Hamburg),Guillaume Gille (HSV Hamburg/GER/injured), Guillaume Joli (Cuatro Rayas Valladolid/ESP), Cedric Sorhaindo (FC Barcelona-Borges/ESP)

Spain (28/18): Arpad Sterbik, Jose Hombrados, Roberto Parrondo Garcia, Julien Aguinagalde, Chema Rodriguez, Joan Canellas, Isaias Guardiola, Viran Morros, Alberto Rodriguez (all Ciudad Real/ESP), Manuel Sierra, Eduardo Gurbindo, (Cuatro Rayas Valladolid/ESP), Juan Antonio Garcia, Christian Ugalde, Victor Tomas, Albert Rocas, Raul Entrerrios, Iker Romero (all FC Barcelona-Borges/ESP), Carlos Prieto (RK Celje/SLO)

Germany (28/13): Johannes Bitter, Pascal Hens, Michael Kraus, Torsten Jansen, Matthias Flohr, Stefan Schröder (all HSV Hamburg), Henning Fritz, Patrick Groetzki, Uwe Gensheimer, Oliver Roggisch (all Rhein Neckar Löwen/GER), Christian Sprenger, Dominik Klein (both THW Kiel/GER), Jakob Heinl (SG Flensburg-Handewitt/GER)

Egypt (26/0)

Tunisia (28/2): Issam Tej, Aymen Hammad (both HB Montpellier)

Bahrain (28/0)

Group B: 35 VELUX EHF Champions League players

With only 35 players, Preliminary Round Group B of the World Championship in Sweden has the lowest number of VELUX EHF Champions League participants – despite the facts that four European teams meet, and that Hungary is the nation with the highest number of VELUX EHF Champions League players of all 24 teams.

Players from Iceland can be found on courts all over Europe, but only six of them belong to VELUX EHF Champions League squads, like in Norway (6).

And as Austria has only one CL players and Japan and Brazil none, the number isn’t that big, But sometimes quality is more important than quantity, like Iceland proved with their Bronze medal at the EHF EURO 2010 in Austria.

Iceland (28/5): Aron Palmarsson (THW Kiel/GER), Ingimundur Ingimundarsson (AaB Handbold), Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson, Olafur Stefansson, Robert Gunnarsson (all Rhein Neckar Löwen/GER), Björgvin Gustavsson (Kadetten Schaffhausen)

Norway (28/6): Bjarte Myrhol, Börge Lund (both Rhein Neckar Löwen/GER), Havard Tvedten, Cristoffer Rambo (both Cuatro Rayas Valladolid), Ole Erevik (KIF Kolding/DEN), Kristian Kjelling (AaB Handbold/DEN)

Austria: (28/1): Viktor Szilagyi (SG Flensburg-Handewitt/GER)

Hungary (28/22): Nandor Fazekas, Szilveszter Liszkai, Peter Gulyas, Tamas Ivancsik, Balasz Laluska, Gabor Csaszar, Cornel Nagy, Nikola Eklemovic, Carlos Perez, Gergö Ivancsik (all MKB Veszprem/HUN), Roland Mickler, Peter Tatai, Mate Lekai, Szabolcs Zubai, David Katzirz, Szabolcs Törö, Attila Vadkerti (all Pick Szeged/HUN), Gabor Ancsin (Rhein Neckar Löwen/GER), Laszlo Nagy (FC Barcelona-Borges/ESP), Tamas Mocsai (SG Flensburg-Handewitt), Gyula Gal (RK Zagreb), Timuszin Schuch (HCM Constanta/ROU)

Japan (28/0)

Brazil (28/0)

Group C: 50 VELUX EHF Champions League players

31 of the 50 players coming from VELUX EHF Champions League clubs in Group C come from Denmark and Croatia. As a lot of Serbs and Romanians play for VELUX EHF Champions League clubs, too, this group has the second biggest number of VELUX EHF Champions League players in Sweden.

While eight of the 15 Croatians in the provisional list play for RK Zagreb, the allocation of the Danish team is quite different: Only eight of their players come from Danish clubs, the rest play in Germany and Spain, especially at the northern German club SG Flensburg-Handewitt.

And the second pair is looking the same: As Serbia currently doesn’t have a club in the VELUX EHF Champions League, all nine Serbs play abroad.

This is the opposite situation to Romania, where nine of their ten CL players have the same club, HCM Constanta.

Algeria and Australia don’t have players in a current club of the VELUX EHF Champions League.

Croatia (28/15): Mirko Allilovic (RK Celje/SLO), Marin Sego, Ivan Pesic, Manuel Strlek, Marko Kopljar, Luka Stepancic, Ivano Balic, Marino Maric, Tonci Valcic,(all RK Zagreb (CRO), Ivan Cupic (Rhein Neckar Löwen/GER), Domagoj Duvnjak, Igor Vori, Blazenko Lackovic (all HSV Hamburg), Renato Sulic (MKB Veszprem), Damir Bicancic (Chambery Savoie/FRA)

Denmark (28/16): Sören Rasmussen, Lasse Boesen, Thomas Mogensen, Anders Eggert, Michael V. Knudsen, Lasse Svan Hansen (all SG Flensburg-Handewitt/GER) Jannick Green Krejberg, Mads Christiansen, Henrik Toft Hansen (all AaB Handbold/DEN), Anders Petersen, Lars Christiansen, Bo Spellerberg,Kasper Söndergaard, Anders Oechsler (all KIF Kolding/DEN), Jesper Nöddesbo (FC Barcelona-Borges/ESP), Hans Lindbergh (HSV Hamburg/GER)

Serbia (28/9): Zarko Sesum (Rhein Neckar Löwen/GER), Marko Vujin, Uros Viloski (both MKB Veszprem/HUN), Alem Toskic, Momir Rnic (both RK Celje), Momir Ilic (THW Kiel/GER), Mladen Bojinovic (Montpellier HB/FRA), Rastko Stojkovic (Vive Targi Kielce/POL), Petar Djordjic (SG Flensburg-Handewitt/GER)

Romania (28/10): Mihai Catalin Popescu, Alexandru Savbou, Marius Stavrositu, Laurentiu Mihai Toma, Chike Osita Onyejekwe, Daniel Christian Muresan, Marius Iulian Mocanu, Marius Sadoveac, Iuliu Alexandru Csepreghi (all HCM Constanta/ROM), Rares Jurca (Kadetten Schaffhausen/SUI)

Algeria (21/0)

Australia (21/0)

Group D: 43 VELUX EHF Champions League players

16:16 – comparing the number of current players of VELUX EHF Champions League clubs, the duel between Poland and Sweden ends in a draw. Those two teams are the favourites in Preliminary Round Group D.

As the Poles mostly count on players from their champion Vive Targi Kielce (10) in their provisional team list, the Swedes are playing all over Europe, as only three of them are currently in the squad of Swedish CL participant, IK Sävehof.

With ten VELUX EHF Champions League players Slovakia is also one of the top nations in this ranking, in contrast to Chile (1), Korea (0) and Argentina (0) – their group opponents.

Poland (28/16): Rafal Glioski, Piotr Grabarczyk, Mateusz Jachlewski, Mariusz Jurasik, Michal Jurecki, Patryk Kuchczyoski, Pawel Podsiadlo, Tomasz Rosioski, Mateusz Zaremba, Daniel Zoltak (all Vive Targi Kielce/POL), Karol Bielecki, Slawomir Szmal, Grzegorz Tkaczyk (all Rhein Neckar Löwen/GER), Mariusz Jurkiewicz (BM Ciudad Real/ESP), Krzysztof Lijewski, Marcin Lijewski (both HSV Hamburg/GER)

Sweden (28/16): Kim Andersson, Robert Arrhenius, Andreas Palicka (all THW Kiel/GER), Dan Beutler, Oscar Carlen, Tobias Karlsson (SG Flensburg-Handewitt/GER), Johan Jakobsson, Robert Johansson, Jonathan Steinbäcken (all IK Sävehof/SWE), Magnus Jernemyr, Johan Sjöstrand (both FC Barcelona-Borges/ESP), Jonas Källman (Ciudad Real/ESP), Lukas Karlsson (KIF Kolding/DEN), Jonas Larholm, Jan Lennartsson (both AaB Handbold/DEN)

Korea (28/0)

Slovakia (28/10): Radovan Pekar, Radoslav Antl, Marek Mikeci, Peter Tumidalsky (all Tatran Presov/SLK), Richard Stochl (Montpellier HB/FRA), Tomas Stranovsky, Maros Balaz, Frantisek Sulc (all Pick Szeged/HUN), Michal Kopco (RK Zagreb/CRO), Peter Kukucka (Kadetten Schaffhausen/SUI)

Argentina (28/0)

Chile (24/1): Marco Antonio Oneto Zuniga (FC Barcelona-Borges/ESP)

Find more info about the tournament on the Official Website.