Austria have qualified for the IHF Men’s Youth World Championship in back-to-back editions for the first time, after the European team finished 13th at Croatia 2023. Their previous appearance was at Hungary 2013, when they finished 16th.

At Egypt 2025, they will finish once again between the 13th and the 16th place, after ending up on the fourth place in Group I in the main round, with consecutive losses against Hungary and Switzerland, the first coming up after a buzzer-beater from Hungary’s Mate Fazekas to take the score to 33:32.

While Austria’s dreams of a top-10 were in tatters, the positives were still there. First, they fought tooth and nail and had a tough schedule, first losing against reigning European champions, Sweden, then against Hungary – two teams qualified for the quarter-finals at Egypt 2025.

Then, they battled in the loss against Switzerland, but eventually had to cede ground, with the efforts made in the match against Hungary draining the young Austria team.

“I think we were too tired. The fight against Hungary costed us too much energy and we lost by a single goal, in the last second. It got too much mental energy and you saw it in the first half against Switzerland, we did too many easy mistakes, too many faults that were unforced,” said Austria’s coach, Sandra Zapletal.

However, Austria are taking the positives from this competition, where they are due to face Slovenia in the Placement Matches 13-16 on Thursday, with a win setting them up for a clash against the winner of the 100% Asian match between Japan and Saudi Arabia and a chance to tie their best-ever performance at the IHF Men’s Youth World Championship.

The senior team, now coached by Iker Romero, has also registered an uptick in performances, finishing eighth at the EHF EURO 2024 – their best performance in history – and 17th at the 2025 IHF Men’s World Championship, their best finish in 10 years.

The conveyor belt of talent is also impressive and there are certain established stars in the senior squad, such as Nikola Bilyk, Tobias Wagner, Sebastian Frimmel or Lukas Hutecek, with more and more younger players breaking into the first team, such as 21-year-old goalkeeper Leon Bergmann, who had an impressive performance at the 2025 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship, where Austria finished 11th, just outside of the top-10.

“We are having more and more children trying to play handball. It was a very big thing that we had a gentleman's agreement in the Austrian league and a lot of young players like Lukas Hutecek, Nikola Bilyk, Tobi Wagner, all these guys could play in the men's first league,” says Zapletal.

But the tides are changing, and now the promotion of talent needs to be carefully managed.

“Unfortunately, that gentleman’s agreement is not in place anymore between all the teams, to not have more than three or four foreign players. We had some clubs who didn't want to do that anymore and now we're having more than 60 foreign players in our league,” adds the Austria coach, who is also the head of development at Fivers WAT Margareten.

Therefore, this proves to be a challenge for Austrian handball and the pipeline of talent coming up.

“I hope we're not going to pay for this in the future. Right now, we are consuming what we did in the past, so we'll see what the future will bring with this development in the Austrian league,” adds Zapletal.

“We're trying really hard to improve even more, but I think we would need more help from the league and again more help for the young players to get their experience in the Austrian first league.”

Zapletal, a former player, who had to retire at the age of 26 years old due to an injury, is also leading Austria for the first time at an edition of the IHF Men’s Youth World Championship.

She is the only woman coaching a men’s team, a rarity even in women’s handball, where at the last edition of the IHF Women’s World Championship, in 2023, there were only two women coaches: Montenegro’s Bojana Popovic and Paraguay’s Marizza Faria.

“The funny thing is for people outside it's something special.For me, it's nothing special, because I grew up with that. I have been doing this for 20 years now. Most of the players, I know them since they were very young. They are used to have me as a coach. In our interactions, it doesn't matter if I am a woman or a man. I hope that if women like to do that, I can be like some sort of example that if you want to do that, if you feel good doing this, just go ahead and do it,” says Zapletal.

“It might look special, but it's also something that should happen in the future for women. I think everybody should do what they like to do, where he or she feels good to do it. There's no force to do nothing, but if you feel good and if you feel right in that place, just do it.”