Since the introduction of the IHF World Player of the Year award, only two players have won it three times - Nikola Karabatić (2007, 2014 and 2016) and Mikkel Hansen (2011, 2015 and 2018). Only one player - Niklas Landin Jacobsen – has secured back-to-back titles. Now, Mathias Gidsel can make some more history of his own, after clinching the IHF World Player of the Year award in 2023 and 2024.

Gidsel has undoubtedly been the best player in the world over those years, but can he make it three years in a row, an unprecedented feature? Chances are that he can, due to his fantastic performances over the last months, where he earned the MVP award and the top scorer award at the 2025 IHF Men’s World Championship, where he scored 74 goals – a competition-high performance, also delivering the largest number of assists, 45.

At club level, Gidsel featured in the final of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League, where he was the top goal scorer of the competition, and also became champion in the German Bundesliga with Füchse Berlin, scoring a competition-high 274 goals. By all metrics, 2025 has been the best year of his career for the 26-year-old right back.