Doha: Saudi Arabia was one of the pioneers for the growth of handball in the Gulf Region. Quite early the Saudi Arabian Handball Federation (SAHF) and the domestic clubs managed to transfer European coaches and players to their country to develop handball on a semi-professional and even professional level.
The SAHF was founded in 1975, and in the late 1990’s the first European players like later-on World Handball Player Filip Jicha arrived to bring Saudi handball on a higher level.
The result of this development process was the participation in four straight World Championships from 1997 to 2003. After a six year absence the Saudis managed to return to the world stage, qualifying for the IHF event 2009 in Croatia. In their neighbour country Qatar they are part of their in total seventh World Championship.
The Saudi team profited from an IHF Council decision to take their spot for Doha after Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates had withdrawn from participation.
Saudi Arabia had finished sixth at the qualification event, the 2014 Asian championship in Bahrain. After two defeats against the hosts and Korea in the preliminary round, they missed the semi-finals and finally ranked on the sixth position, while only the four semi-finallist clinched their berth for Qatar. Later-on at the Asian Games 2014 the Saudi team finished on the seventh position in Incheon, Korea.
Despite their leading role on club level including former Asian champions and IHF Super Globe participant Mudhar, the national team never managed to win the title at Asian Championships. Their by now best results were bronze medals in 2002, 20089 and 2012. In 1993, they had their first ever semi-final appearance, finally finishing on the fourth position.
After Nenad Kljajic, Olympic champion with Croatia in 1996, had led the team to the 2013 World Championship in Spain, the coach now has changed to another former professional from the Balkans, Goran Djokic, who had been coach at Spanish clubs for a long time before.
The most experienced players in the current and completely rejuvenated squad are goalkeeper Mohamad Alsalem, the only one with more than 100 international matches, and left back Abdullah Alhammad. In Qatar, Saudi Arabia will face Denmark, Poland, Russia, Argentina and Germany in preliminary round group D in the event. THE PENINSULA
