Throughout the 2021 IHF Men’s World Championship Preliminary Round which started on Wednesday 13 January and finished on Tuesday 19 January, a total of 46* matches were played with some impressive individual and team performances, statistically-speaking.

Every single match - like all at Egypt 2021 - saw fans have the opportunity to help decide the ‘hummel Player of the Match’ award, via the IHF Official App with the IHF Analyst on site nominating a shortlist of three influential players with five minutes remaining and getting fans to vote.

So far, hosts Egypt along with European teams Denmark, Hungary and Poland have a perfect record – taking all three awards in their three games to date, with Denmark’s Mathias Gidsel and Poland’s Arkadiusz Moryto winning two apiece. The right backs are joined in this exclusive club by the Swiss centre back, Andy Schmid.

Positionally-speaking, right-backs are the most favoured choice, with 14 of the 46 (30.43%) awards being given to those playing there, while goalkeepers are behind in second place, with nine awards.

And want to know what shirt to wear to be the best? It seems that #23 and #33 are the numbers for you, with four awards each allocated to these shirt wearers.

Hummel Player of the Match awards – Egypt 2021
(up to end of Preliminary Round, 46 games played/48 scheduled)

Per Team
3 – Denmark (DEN), Egypt (EGY), Hungary (HUN), Poland (POL) – 4 teams

2 – Argentina (ARG), Belarus (BLR), Croatia (CRO), France (FRA), Iceland (ISL), Japan (JPN), Norway (NOR), Portugal (POR), Qatar (QAT), Slovenia (SLO), Switzerland (SUI), Sweden (SWE) – 12 teams

1 – Algeria (ALG), Brazil (BRA), DR Congo (COD), Spain (ESP), Republic of Korea (KOR), Morocco (MAR), North Macedonia (MKD), Russian Handball Federation Team (RHF), Tunisia (TUN), Uruguay (URU) – 10 teams

0 – Angola (ANG), Austria (AUT), Bahrain (BRN), Cape Verde (CPV)*, Chile (CHI), Germany (GER) – 6 teams

Per Position

14 – Right Back
9 – Goalkeeper
6 – Centre Back
6 – Left Back
5 – Left Wing
3 – Line Player (Pivot)
3 – Right Wing

Per Player

2 – Andy SCHMID (SUI), Arkadiusz MORYTO (POL), Mathias GIDSEL (DEN)

1 – (40 players)

Per Shirt Number

4 – #23, #33

3 – #2, #7, #12, #15, #87

Per Game

Game	Player	Country	Position	Shirt #
EGY vs CHI	Yahia Elderaa	EGY	Left back	39
BLR vs RHF	Udladzislau Kulesh	BLR	Left back	3
ALG vs MAR	Yassine Idrissi	MAR	Goalkeeper	1
AUT vs SUI	Andy Schmid	SUI	Centre back	2
SLO vs KOR	Miha Zarabec	SLO	Centre back	23
SWE vs MKD	Hampus Wanne	SWE	Left wing	15
POR vs ISL	Miguel Martins	POR	Centre back	10
NOR vs FRA	Wesley Pardin	FRA	Goalkeeper	24
QAT vs ANG	Ahmad Madadi	QAT	Left wing	7
ARG vs COD	Juan Bar	ARG	Goalkeeper	87
ESP vs BRA	Haniel Langaro	BRA	Left back	37
GER vs URU	Felipe Gonzalez	URU	Goalkeeper	16
CRO vs JPN	Yuto Agarie	JPN	Centre back	33
DEN vs BRN	Mathias Gidsel	DEN	Right back	33
TUN vs POL	Arkadiusz Moryto	POL	Right back	23
HUN vs CPV	Gabor Ancsin	HUN	Right back	33
BLR vs KOR	Mikita Vailupau	BLR	Right wing	55
EGY vs MKD	Hassan Kaddah	EGY	Left back	42
MAR vs POR	Pedro Portela	POR	Right wing	4
RHF vs SLO	Viktor Kireev	RHF	Goalkeeper	87
AUT vs FRA	Vincent Gerard	FRA	Goalkeeper	12
ALG vs ISL	Bjarki Mar Elisson	ISL	Left wing	8
CHI vs SWE	Lukas Pellas	SWE	Left wing	22
SUI vs NOR	Sander Sagosen	NOR	Left back	5
QAT vs JPN	Frankis Marzo	QAT	Right back	10
ARG vs BRN	Federico Pizarro	ARG	Right back	2
TUN vs BRA	Mohamed Amine Darmoul	TUN	Centre back	71
CPV vs GER	Match Cancelled
ANG vs CRO	Ivan Pešić	CRO	Goalkeeper	12
COD vs DEN	Emil Nielsen	DEN	Goalkeeper	12
POL vs ESP	Arkadiusz Moryto	POL	Right back	23
HUN vs URU	Dominik Mathe	HUN	Right back	23
MKD vs CHI	Kiril Lazarov	MKD	Right back	7
KOR vs RHF	Jiun Kim	KOR	Right back	87
SWE vs EGY	Mohamed Sanad	EGY	Right wing	91
POR vs ALG	Messaoud Berkous	ALG	Left back	6
FRA vs SUI	Andy Schmid	SUI	Centre back	2
SLO vs BLR	Jure Dolenec	SLO	Right back	11
ISL vs MAR	Viggo Kristjansson	ISL	Right back	7
NOR vs AUT	Kent Robin Tonnesen	NOR	Right back	15
JPN vs ANG	Jin Watanabe	JPN	Right back	20
BRN vs COD	Gauthier Mvumbi	COD	Pivot	15
ESP vs TUN	Angel Fernandez Perez	ESP	Left wing	6
URU vs CPV	Match Cancelled
CRO vs QAT	Marino Maric	CRO	Pivot	3
DEN vs ARG	Mathias Gidsel	DEN	Right back	33
BRA vs POL	Adam Morawski	POL	Goalkeeper	94
GER vs HUN	Bence Banhidi	HUN	Pivot	27

*Initially, 48 matches were scheduled to be played, but following the withdrawal of Cape Verde, their two games vs Germany and vs Uruguay were cancelled with 10:0 wins awarded to their two opponents. No best player awards were given for these.

All information use data supplied by national federations at their pre-championship technical meetings. In-depth statistics can be found on the IHF Egypt 2021 mini-site HERE.