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The Italian males’s nationwide handball staff has certified for the subsequent World Championships, which can be held from 14 January to 2 February 2025 in Croatia, Denmark and Norway. In its historical past it had solely occurred as soon as earlier than, in 1997, and it’s due to this fact a vital end result for a sport which traditionally in Italy has not had nice success amongst practitioners, audiences and, due to this fact, outcomes.
To acquire qualification, Italy had first eradicated Turkey because of a single objective distinction (in November that they had misplaced 37-28 in Turkey, however then gained 37-27 at dwelling, on the federal technical middle in Chieti), then eradicated Belgium with two victories (29-25 and 33-31) and eventually gained each matches in opposition to Montenegro (32-26 in Chieti and 34-32 in Montenegro). After the victory obtained in Podgorica in entrance of 6 thousand Montenegro followers, captain Andrea Parisini mentioned: «We have written historical past. I hope that this step could make individuals uncover that this sport exists and that there are children who make nice sacrifices to do it and to make themselves recognized.”
In reality, handball in Italy remains to be a little bit practiced and adopted sport, particularly when in comparison with different staff sports activities (soccer, basketball and volleyball) and to the success that the game has in different neighboring nations equivalent to France, whose the lads’s and ladies’s nationwide groups gained the match on the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (the French males’s nationwide staff has gained three of the final 4 Olympics, by the best way). Second and provides newer than the Italian Olympic Committee, within the 2021-2022 season the Italian Handball Federation (the FIGH) had simply over 11 thousand registered athletes, i.e. individuals who apply the game at a aggressive stage in Italy. For comparability, Fipav, the volleyball federation, had 285 thousand, whereas these of basketball had been simply over 232 thousand.
Riccardo Trillini, who has been the technical director of the nationwide groups and the coach of the lads’s staff since 2017, 5 years in the past defined that on this sport, Italy “missed the boat within the Nineteen Nineties: whereas different nations had been equipping themselves in professionalism with ample technicians and buildings, we did not reap the benefits of that second of change”. There was a scarcity of locations to play handball, additionally as a consequence of the truth that in lots of circumstances it was not potential to make use of the identical gyms used for basketball as a result of the handball court docket is 40 meters lengthy, whereas the basketball court docket is 32. The nationwide staff didn’t have a federal middle during which to coach and host dwelling video games. There wasn’t even ample communication and tv protection that allowed individuals to comply with handball and due to this fact grow to be passionate concerning the sport.
In latest years, nevertheless, it began to vary one thing. From 2021-2022 the nationwide staff’s matches can be broadcast on Sky, because of an settlement between the broadcaster and the federation (they’re typically additionally seen on Figh channels). On 3 September 2021, the “House of handball” was inaugurated, the federal middle in Chieti, in Abruzzo, the place all of the nationwide groups can now practice (males’s, ladies’s, and amongst these the assorted classes divided by age). Also in the summertime of 2021, Figh created the Campus Italia, i.e. a staff made up solely of Italian under-19 boys who at present play within the Serie A Silver (i.e. the second division). It is a helpful approach to get younger individuals to play collectively in class championships, already seen in different sports activities: in volleyball, for instance, there’s each males’s and ladies’s Club Italia (they at present play in Serie A2 and B1).
Even earlier than Campus Italia, a brand new era of very promising Italian gamers had begun to develop, a few of whom had gained expertise in increased stage leagues, even when not in Italy. In reality, roughly half of the gamers of the nationwide staff that certified for the World Cup at present play overseas: on the one hand this has considerably disadvantaged the Italian championship of worthwhile gamers, however on the opposite it has allowed them to realize expertise in additional aggressive contexts. aggressive, and due to this fact to enhance and make the nationwide staff enhance. The progress of latest years has led to the historic qualification for the 2025 World Cup for Italy’s males’s staff (it didn’t qualify for the Paris Olympics), whereas the event of the ladies’s nationwide staff and Italian handball gamers remains to be far behind.