July 3, 2020 - Croatia national team player Luka Cindric has been included among the five candidates for the best handball player in the world in 2019, the International Handball Federation (IHF) announced.

Gol.hr writes that among the candidates for this prestigious award are the Danes Mikkel Hansen (PSG), Rasmus Lauge Schmidt (Flensburg / Veszprem) and Niklas Landin Jacobsen (Kiel), and the Norwegian Sander Sagosen (PSG).

The IHF also announced five candidates for the best female handball players of the year, namely Dutch Estavana Polman (Team Esbjerg), Lois Abbingh (Rostov-Don) and Tess Wester (Odense), Russian Anna Vjakhireva (Rostov-Don) and Norwegian Stine Bredal Oftedal (Gyori Audi ETO KC).

"Cindric started 2019 with a sixth-place finish with Croatia at the 2019 IHF Men’s World Championship. The centre back went on to reach the Champions League finals, the VELUX EHF FINAL4, with his club PGE Vive Kielce, ultimately ranking fourth. He contributed 59 goals towards the club’s Champions League effort during the season and was also part of Kielce claiming their 16th Polish championship title. He was voted best centre back of the Polish championship 2018/19. 

Over the summer of 2019, Cindric transferred to Barcelona. With Barça, the Croatian playmaker celebrated titles immediately, including the 2019 IHF Super Globe trophy. Cindric was instrumental in Barça taking their record fifth Super Globe title, leading the Spanish side with 22 goals in the competition, including 11 in the final," the IHF explained.

Interestingly, Cindric won as many as six trophies in the first season with Barcelona, and he also hopes for the European Champions Cup. But there are more than five months left until the Champions League Final Four.

In addition to the Club World Cup, he also won the Spanish Championship, the Copa del Rey, the ASOBAL Cup, the Spanish Super Cup, and the Super Cup of Catalonia.

The fans will decide on the best handball players in 2019, and the voting lasts until July 18 on the IHF website.

Ivano Balic (2003, 2006) and Domagoj Duvnjak (2013) have already won the award for the best handball player in the world.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

February 28, 2020 - The International Handball Federation has announced that Croatia, Norway, and Denmark will host the 2025 Handball World Championships!

This exciting news was confirmed on Friday by the International Handball Federation (IHF), which has allocated hosts for all major championships over the next five years.

Gol.hr reports that for the fourth time in history, Croatia will host one major handball competition. Namely, they will host the four groups of the first round, two groups of the second round, two quarterfinals and one semifinal. Everything else will be played in northern Europe with the Norwegian capital Oslo as the venue for the third-place game and final.

The need for so many cities (Copenhagen and Herning in Denmark, Trondheim, Stavanger, Drammen and Oslo in Norway) is because this will be the third World Championship in a row with 32 national teams.

This is the first time since 2009 that the World Championships will be played in Croatia. At that time, Lino Cervar's squad lost in the final to France, but the championship was marked by a great atmosphere in Croatian arenas.

Croatia has already organized Euro 2000 and 2018 as far as major competitions are concerned, but the Croatia handball team was not able to win a medal (fifth and sixth place).

In addition to the Senior World Cup, this year, Croatia will host the Women's Under-19 Handball World Championships and the 2023 Handball World Championships for the same year. 

The Croatia men's team played a fantastic European Championship earlier this year, where they finished second.

The next challenge for the Croatia handball team is the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, to be held in France from April 17 to 19 this year in the famous Bercy Hall. In order for Croatia to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, they will open against France, at 9 pm on April 17.  A day later, they will play against Portugal from 6:30 pm and then, on April 19, against Tunisia at 6:30 pm.

The games against France and Portugal are marked as crucial, in which the ‘Cowboys’ must record at least one victory.

The top two teams in each group will go to Tokyo.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.