"Αγάλι-αγάλι γίνεται η αγουρίδα μέλι." A well-known Greek proverb states that “slowly, slowly, the unripe grape becomes honey." Or good things take time and patience will be rewarded.

For the Greece men's senior handball team, patience had been stretched to its limits. The golden years of 2004 and 2005 felt like a lifetime ago: a quarter-final finish at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, where they defeated Brazil and Egypt, followed by a sixth-place finish at the 2005 IHF Men's World Championship, where they eliminated both France and Russia. A generation of genuine achievement and then, silence.

For nearly two decades, Greece failed to qualify for any major world event. The Men's EHF EURO 2024 offered a first glimmer of hope, but even that felt like an exception rather than a turning point. Greece finished on the 23rd place from 24 teams, conceding three losses in three matches.

Then came last week. In a remarkable doubleheader, Greece defeated the Netherlands twice - 29:27 and 38:33 - to secure their place in the qualifier list for the 2027 IHF Men's World Championship. 

The significance was even bigger: it was the Netherlands who had eliminated Greece in the European Qualification for the previous edition of the same competition. This time, Greece made sure the story ended differently.

The grape, it turns out, just needed more time.

 

“After that generation of 2004-2005, there was no major achievement with the national team until 2024, when we went to the Euro. And I think that's something really good, because handball is not that big in Greece. We don't even have a proper arena for the national team, we play in a small town outside Athens, in Chalkida. But the last few years have brought really good steps. A lot of players are competing in good leagues abroad, and two or three clubs are performing well in Europe. I hope this is just the beginning and that things keep getting better every year,” says Greece’s right back Achilleas Toskas.

Toskas is only 21 years old – he was not born when Greece were shining at the Olympics and he was barely three months old when the European side made their debut at the IHF Men’s World Championship.

But he was part of Greece’s junior team which finished 15th at the 2023 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship, alongside centre back Dimitrios Panagiotou, right back Athanasios Papazoglou and line player Eleftherios Pagiatis.

“At the moment we have four players from that Junior World Championship. It helped us a lot to play there, you get to see exactly where your level is compared to the best teams in the world. It was a great experience and it definitely shaped us as players,” adds Toskas.

Greece have had their fair share of success in European club competitions, with AEK Athens winning the EHF European Cup Men in 2021, while Olympiakos and AEK played the final – and lost it – in 2024 and 2025.

Their core features mainly in the Greek league, with 13 of the 19 players playing for Olympiakos, AEK Athens, PAOK Thessaloniki, ESN Vrilissia, Athinaϊkos or ASE Douka, while six others are featuring outside of their home country.

But for Toskas, his native qualities, his talent and his potential were earmarked immediately after the 2023 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship, signing for German side TVB 1898 Stuttgart, before being loaned last autumn to French side Chambéry Savoie Mont Blanc Handball.

In 17 matches, he scored 55 goals, for an average of 3,24 goals per match, and assisted 55 goals, a great stats line for a 21-year-old who just featured for the first time in a strong league like the French one.

 

Did this experience help shape Toskas’ career?

“Hugely. I spent one and a half years in the Bundesliga and now half a year in France. It's something really different from playing in Greece. You see the best players in the world every day and you compete against them. You learn how they work and that raises your level, as a player and mentally. Petros Boukovinas has been in Germany for many years at a really high level, and I think his mentality as a captain helped us enormously. And I think after some good games at the World Championship, more players might get opportunities to move to better leagues,” adds the 21-year-old right back.

However, nothing could have been accomplished were it not for the amazing team spirit which was delivered in a long journey for the Greece team.

Only last year, Greece failed to make the cut for the Men’s EHF EURO 2026, finishing third in their group, where they beat Georgia and Bosnia Herzegovina on their home court, but still finished nine goals away of Ukraine, and failed to secure a place in the competition.

That, in turn, meant that they had to take the long way for a place at the 2027 IHF Men’s World Championship, entering the Qualification Europe – Phase 2, where they disposed of Belgium, with a 29:26 home win and a 34:31 away win, for a 63:57 aggregate win.

Netherlands followed and it was the same team which denied Greece a place at the previous edition, when they eliminated Greece with a 58:56 aggregate win in the same phase of the Qualifiers.

“The last two times we were in this exact situation, against the Netherlands and before that against Montenegro, we didn't qualify. So this was the third consecutive time we faced that moment, and we said: this is our time. We know the quality of the Netherlands and the players they have, but we were not going to stand and watch them play. We were going to fight - and we did,” says Toskas.

This time around, it looked different. In the first leg in Chalkida, Greece took an early lead, but with 10 minutes left on the clock, the Netherlands were leading by three goals and everything looked like plain sailing for a more experienced team, which had Luc Steins as the centre back directing everything.

Only for Greece to come back and secure a 29:27 win. That was not uncharted territory, because Greece had previously won by four goals against the Netherlands, 31:27, in 2024, but lost by six goals in the away leg, to fail to qualify.

This time around, it was not going to slip. True, the Netherlands started better, led by three goals, 9:6, after 11 minutes, which meant that the tides were turned. 14 minutes later, Greece had scored seven goals more and were leading 17:13.

And they never looked back.

 

“We stayed calm. We still believed we had our chances, and we made a great last 10 minutes in the first leg. You need some luck sometimes, but from the beginning of that week, every training session was really sharp, we were ready,” says Toskas.

Greece continued to pounced and finished the match with 38 goals scored, totally outplaying the Netherlands, celebrating wildly at the end of the match.

“It was something great. I don't know, we are still trying to believe it, even now, after some days have passed and the emotions are settling. It's an amazing feeling. Every player worked so hard for this. It's something we expected of ourselves, but it was also against the odds, we were not the favourites. I'm really proud to be part of this team and to achieve this goal,” adds Toskas.

But this will not only be a simple qualification. It might be the start of something special in Greek handball, because it might be the catalyst for more children coming into the sport, learning about it and trying to play it.

Football and basketball, with owners that put up a hefty budget for teams like Panathinaikos or Olympiakos, are the most popular sports in Greece, by a large margin. But with this qualification at the World Championship, which did the rounds around media, handball might be an attractive proposition in the future.

“That's the most important thing. It's not easy when football and basketball take up 90% of the kids. If there are no big achievements with the national team, it's normal that children don't follow the sport. But if we have a good performance at the World Championship, that can change things. It could really help bring more kids to handball in Greece,” says Toskas.

The next milestone for Greece will be the draw for the 2027 IHF Men’s World Championship, where the European side will be in Pot 3. A good draw would enhance the chances for a better finish.

“I think it's really valuable that we will play at least six matches, because we are a young team with limited experience together. We go there to take what we can, what we deserve. We know we're not fighting for the title, but we're going for the experience, and to enjoy it, because we earned it,” concludes Toskas.