Since hosting the IHF Men's Youth World Championship in 2007, Bahrain have put a great emphasis on creating excellent teams which can feed the senior men's side, but over the last years they simply could not rise to the challenge.

The highlight was winning two titles at the AHF Asian Men's Youth Handball Championship in 2016 and 2018, but they failed to replicate those performances at the IHF Men's Youth World Championship, finishing 22nd in 2017 and 17th in 2019, with only four wins in the past two editions.

However, some of those wins were interesting, against Serbia or Denmark, which underlined the Asian side's potential and their penchant for surprises, like they just did in June at the IHF Men's Junior World Championship when they clinched a draw against Slovenia and progressed to the main round.

Some other upsets might be on the cards, but Bahrain are definitely the underdogs of this group D at Croatia 2023, where they face Spain, the Republic of Korea and Brazil, especially after their performance last summer at the 2022 AHF Asian Men's Youth Handball Championship.

While they finished only on the fifth place, snatching the ticket to Croatia 2023 only after a 27:21 win over Kuwait in the Placement Match 5/6, their results were simply not up to par, with a big loss against the Republic of Korea (22:39) in the preliminary round and against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which means that the Asian side will have to improve steadily to challenge for a better finish than the 17th place in their last participation in the IHF Men's Youth World Championship.

Key players: Jaffar Farsan (left back), Mohamed Abdulla (centre back), Husain Alhayki (centre back)
Qualification for Croatia 2023: 2022 AHF Asian Men's Youth Handball Championship – 5th place
History in the tournament: 2007: 8th, 2011: 17th, 2017: 22nd, 2019: 17th 
Group at Croatia 2023: Group D (Spain, Republic of Korea, Brazil, Bahrain)