Olympic Team Handball Thread

[sinok]

So guys...

This is NOT handball as you americans know it (you know, that thing involving two men, a wall and a rubber ball).

Team handball is indoor sport, played 7 on 7 (6 fields players with one goalee) with a size 3 leather ball.
Whoever scores the most goals at the end (wait, sériously?).
Games are made of two halves of 30 minutes each and the final scores are usually around 30 goals for each team. (this like 32-29).
This quite fast paced game.
Defense is more aggresive than basketball one, more physical, the main goal being to keep the guy in front of you by preventing him to take speed.

Less dribbling cause the rules are stricter on that (just can hit the ball, can't really drive).

You are allowed to take one more step without dribbling than in basket ball (LeClown should love that)
Euro step (or 1-2 step) is the basic of one on one, lots of body feints, faking passes & stuff like that.

There is an equivalent to alley hoop, thus alley shoot.

Powerhouses in this tounament are Danemark (last european champion), France (last worlds & olympic), Croatia, Spain, Serbia and maybe Sweden...

You can get it live on NBC streaming site:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/handball/index.html, give it a try if you get bored by the lots of no action sports.

You can find some vids in my sig, after the pum pum part

Anf this is the full vid of last champions league final (Athletic Madrid (spain) vs THW Kiel (Germany))

Skip to 7:30 if you want to avoid "Final Countdown" type .




-------------------------------- Rules (aka boring part)---------------------

The rules are faily understandable for anyone used to basketball.

- A field player can't step in the 6 meter zone around the goal. Only the goalie is allowed here. However he can jump over it to get nearer to goal, but the player to shoot/release the ball before touching the ground.
- A player can't stay idle with the ball for more than 3 seconds. He can either pass/shoot/take three stapes/dribble.
- The dribbling is not the same than the basketball one, you can't cover the ball, just have to hit it (thus a lot less of drives, more off the ball plays).
- You can' take more than 3 steps, otherwise you will be called a travel.
- If you foul too hard you will get a yellow card  and the next times get excluded for two minutes (hockey rules). Then you can come back. At the third exclusion, you are sent off, but someone replace you after 2 minutes.
...

Have fun guys.

[ALVAREZ6]

what other handball sport, other than handball, is there?

[sinok]

This:



That's the one they know in the US of A, some kind of simplified pala

[sinok]

Of course that Argentina knows the real game as handball (Simonet brothers and so on and so forth)

[lefty]

Im gonna have some banning to do

[NASpurs]

I thought this was an American "football" thread.

[MannyIsGod]

This:



That's the one they know in the US of A, some kind of simplified pala

Never seen that. I have played handball here in the US, though. It was when I was a kid.

[velik_m]

Handball has stupid rules.

[Brazil]

Handball is a great sport tbh, very underrated

[sinok]

If you don't have anything to watch, or want to discover a decent sport, right now is one of the first clashes of the tournament:
Denmark versus Spain: http://www.nbcolympics.com/handball/index.html

[mudyez]

whats up with all this handball hype?...grantland even has a podcast and a column about it

I'm from germany (which has the strongest handball league and was world champ several years ago) and aside from beeing a pretty tough sport, I think its very annoying especially if you are used to basketball...

how can you be called for delaying the game after being hacked like 8 times trying to score?

[Brazil]

Les experts are going to crush the compe ion tbh

[lefty]

Handball is a great sport tbh, very underrated

Lol I sucked at it in high school

[sinok]

They haven't faced any real contender as of yet, and group A is quite easy tbh...
Whereas B group is quite tight, and that is an understatement...

So the real test fr them will begin in QFs,

[sinok]

Awesome game between france and spain in quarter finals.

Decided at the last second:

Replay here: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/han...erfinal-2.html