Spain have won the 21st edition of the Mediterranean Handball Confederation’s (MHC) Men’s Championship, following in the footsteps of their women’s side who took gold in their respective championship in February.

Three different continents, Africa, Asia and Europe, were represented through 11 nations – Spain (ESP), Serbia (SRB), Romania (ROU), Turkiye (TUR), Egypt (EGY), Croatia (CRO), Kuwait (KUW), Montenegro (MNE), Italy (ITA), Greece (GRE) and hosts Tunisia (TUN) – with games held in the Tunisian cities of Hammamet and Grombalia from 6 to 13 April. 

Played under the traditional rules of the MHC, the championship was for U17 players with the aim of promoting development of handball amongst the younger age categories in the Mediterranean region.

The MHC rules of play see every match divided into three periods of 15 minutes each. In each period, the team who scores the largest number of goals receives one point. In case of a draw in a period, each team receives 0.5 points. At the end of the game, the winner is the team which has the most points and is subsequently awarded two points in the ranking of the group. Knock-out games revert to overall goals scored.

Spain see off Croatia to secure gold

The 11 teams were initially placed into two preliminary groups, with group A featuring Spain, Serbia, Romania, Turkiye and Egypt, while group B included Tunisia, Croatia, Kuwait, Montenegro, Italy and Greece.

Eventual winners Spain had a slow start to their campaign in group A, opening with a victory against the strong Egyptians (21:18), but winning just two of the three periods. It got worse in their second game, as they lost the first period against Serbia (7:8), before drawing the second (9:9) and then taking the third (9:6) to seal a tight 25:23 overall win. Romania were then seen off 21:14 in their third game, which saw a 5:5 third-period draw. However, the Spanish ended their preliminary campaign with a strong three-period, 21:13 victory over Turkiye, to finish top of the group.

Group B was topped by Croatia who were 100% dominant, winning all 15 periods of their five games. They started by taking down Italy (24:12), before progressing to Kuwait (37:14), Montenegro (27:11), Greece (26:18) and ending the first stage with a 31:22 defeat of hosts Tunisia.

Croatia made it through to the final with a 21:18 (6:4, 7:7, 8:7) victory over Egypt in the next phase, while Spain saw off Italy 19:18 (7:7, 6:5, 6:6) in an extremely tight contest.

This meant that Croatia and Spain would face off in the final, with one team losing their unbeaten record and that would prove to be the Croatians, who were well beaten in the first period (13:7). With six goals to make up, they had a mountain to climb and Spain did just enough, taking the second (10:9) and third (11:10) by one goal each to claim the title with a 34:26 win. Egypt comfortably defeated Italy 29:19 for bronze.

In the other placement games, Serbia took fifth, defeating Greece 28:27, Montenegro won 5:3 on seven metre shots against Romania in their 7/8 placement match after, incredibly, all three periods finished equal (8:8, 7:7, 7:7) and the hosts ended with a 28:24 win over Turkiye to confirm a spot inside the top 10.

IHF and MHC working together to prepare referees for the future

Like the women’s championship in February, the Mediterranean Handball Confederation requested an IHF Lecturer for the men’s championships with the purpose of supporting and developing the referees and officials involved with the championship.

Denmark’s Per Olesen, an IHF Playing Rules and Referees Commission (PRC) Lecturer and IHF Official, who recently was nominated for the 2025 IHF Men’s World Championship, joined MHC Referee Coach and Competition manager, Alain Dessertenne plus delegates from Greece, Spain and Tunisia to help support a total of seven male and female referee couples from Greece, Italy, Croatia, Spain, Serbia and Tunisia who were nominated for the championship.

A two-day referee and delegate seminar was also held ahead of the championship. This included rules tests, fitness tests, pair work, IHF referee guidelines, evaluation of games, shuttle runs and preparation work. A mini course then took place on day two which saw the topics of body language, the pushing of jumping players, progressive punishment and throw-off tactics covered.

“The Tunisian Handball Federation and the Mediterranean Handball Confederation provided favourable conditions for the referees and they were a highly-motivated group with a clear wish to improve,” explained Olesen to ihf.info.

“Even though they came from the entire region around the Mediterranean, the referee line was generally quite consistent and it all started from a fairly solid level that matched the teams very well. Referee pairs were thoroughly prepared and their fitness/rule tests were completed at an impressive standard.

“For all the matches I observed, there was an individual video review afterward, where I offered helpful tips and recommendations. Even though the discussions took place on the same evening as the matches, some of the referee pairs had already rewatched the match themselves and thus contributed even more constructively to their own referee development.

“Leaving a well-organised championship in Tunisia brings plenty of positivity and the expectation that some of these referee pairs will undoubtedly appear on the global stage in a few years,” he added. “This all happily shows that the IHF referee training is reaching far and wide – it was a great pleasure.”

All-Star Team announced

Egypt dominated the All-star Team, taking three of the seven positions available, with Croatia (2), Italy and Spain making up the best seven. Egyptian All-star Team right-back Youssef Amr Saad Hafzallah also ended up as the top scorer on 38 goals, while Ruben Cardenosa Lopez added to his gold medal with Spain by taking the overall MVP award.

All-Star Team   
Goalkeeper: Mahmoud Alsayed Mahmoud (EGY)
Left Wing: Yassin Ahmed Fathy Mostafa (EGY)  
Left Back: Josip Čulo (CRO)
Centre Back: Samuel Zanetti (ITA) 
Line Player: William Thompson Bouzad (ESP)    
Right Back: Youssef Amr Saad Hafzallah (EGY)  
Right Wing: Emanule Fištrovid (CRO)    
Top Scorer: Youssef Amr Saad Hafzallah (EGY) – 38 goals
Most Valuable Player (MVP): Ruben Cardenosa Lopez (ESP) 

Final Ranking

1 Spain
2 Croatia
3 Egypt
4 Italy
5 Serbia
6 Greece
7 Montenegro
8 Romania
9 Tunisia
10 Turkiye
11 Kuwait                        

All matches were streamed live and free on the Tunisian Handball Federation YouTube channel, where they can be watched again HERE.

Photos: Katal Media/Tunisian Handball Federation/MHC