Mr. E wrote:TheTrooper wrote:Well not embracing sports is not a uniquely American thing. Europeans are really reluctant to give baseball or the NFL a chance for example. On the other hand basketball has a nice base in Europe and Soccer is growing in the USA.
I'm skeptical about the chances of handball going big in the US because of some initiative coming from Europe. It needs to grow financially in Europe first. The economic crisis really hurt handball as a sport.
Team of NBA guys might be able to do the trick. It would turn some attention to the sport and maybe some money around. I really believe that they could be pretty good given 3-4 years to get ready (not elite though like OP claims). Basketball players have a history of transitioning to handball in Europe. Best example of it is Ivano Balic a legit GOAT candidate. He played both until mid teens and then chose handball, although he claims he likes basketball better.
Basketball is a sport with more skill then handball and a lot more size.If you are good at basketball you can be good at handball too. But the guys that will transition well are not necessarily the most skilled or the most athletic ones. It's really the ones that can take the most beating.
If I was an American trying to gather a team for the next Olympics I would first look at handball pros in Europe that a US citizens. Next I would take some big names from other sports (football and basketball) and I would take the ones that are able to take the biggest beating and I would try to naturalize 2-3 pro goalkeepers. They are the one that a by far the hardest to produce from scratch.
Where in Europe is Handball the most popular? Is it a big thing in the Balkans or Central Europe?
I just did an quick search and I found out that not only is there a Handball club in my city (fourth ((really third)) largest in USA, so that shouldn't surprise me); but they actually hold open practices just a few miles down the road from me a few times a week. I will have to check them out.
It's spread out really. There is no place where it is a no1 sport, but it's a thing in many countries. Nordic countries are into handball a lot. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland.
The countries of former Yugoslavia are the only ones in the Balkans where it is popular (in particular Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia). Female handball is still relatively popular in Romania.
It's popular in Germany (they have the best league), France (second best league, and most successful NT ever), Spain (used to have the best league, but they crashed and now are a one team league - Barcelona, still one of the best NT), Hungary and Poland.
There are some other handball nations that are decent and have some decent clubs/players like Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal (they are investing a lot lately in their clubs).
Other than that Russia used to be a powerhouse, but now they are really really bad, Their league is awful, their NT is average and all of their best players are in their mid 30's.
Shame, the 90's were Sweden vs Russia era. 00's were Croatia vs France and now there is this "big 4" (Croatia, France, Spain, Denmark) which is sometimes joined in the semifinals by Poland, Hungary, Germany or the host nation of the tournament
.
Outside of Europe the Arabs are good at it. Tunisia is the best one right now. Actually it's Qatar, but their NT doesn't have any Qatari players. They are tolerated because they pump up a lot of money in European clubs and sponsor every competition. Egypt was for a long time the best African team and Algeria is a regular at the WC.
Argentina and Brazil are competitive and are known to cause trouble to the European teams in WC and Olympics. A lot of their players play in Europe too.
South Korea used to be good, but not anymore. They had few good generations and now they are just there because there is not much competition in Asia. Their women's NT is pretty good though. Iranian handball is also a thing.
Go ahead,check it out
It's a shame I havent played in a while