Handball Stars Day 2013, in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid, Spain. Source: Carlos Delgado
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From Qatar to Argentina, Spanish coaches have become the dominators of world handball. The deep crisis in which the Spanish league is plunged has caused many players and coaches to pack their bags in search of economic stability, and now an infinity of benches speak Spanish. Paradoxically, the dispersion of Spanish talent has not prevented the team from experiencing the most successful time in its history.
It seemed anything but the beginning of a handball World Cup: PCR tests, masks, empty stands; Abdelfatá al Sisi, the dictator of Egypt, host country, giving the inaugural speech… The party that faced Egypt and Chile in Cairo on January 13 was, to say the least, dystopian. But there was an element that reconciled the experienced spectator with the match they expected to see: on one side, leading the Egypt bench, there was a Madrid man; to the other, at the controls of Chile, a Navarrese.
Their names are Roberto García Parrondo and Mateo Garralda, and both are part of the coveted group of Spanish coaches who lead the elite of world handball. In recent years dozens of teams from around the globe have chosen a Spanish coach to command their squads, and the number continues to increase. Successes either. At club level, three of the teams that played in the final four of the last Champions League – the highest European club competition – had a Spanish coach: Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and the Hungarian Veszprém. At the national level, all the 2018 continental tournaments had a team with …
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