The third and final stage of the 2025 IHF Beach Handball Global Tour gets underway in João Pessoa, Brazil on Friday 7 November, with eight national teams competing over three matchdays (7, 8, 9 November) for the right to be called 2025 champions.

Host nation Brazil, along with guest team Argentina and stage winners Spain will be competing in both the men’s and women’s competitions, with the team line-ups completed by Croatia’s men – winners of stage 1 in Tunisia – and Poland’s women, runners-up on stage 2 in Spain.

The World Games champions looking to add another gold to their collection

Argentina’s women are fresh from their The World Games gold medal, having taken the title in China earlier this year and they cannot wait to get onto the Brazilian sand with the South American beach summer season starting to get underway.

“It will be a very difficult and will be a very even tournament,” said Argentina’s head coach Leticia Brunati to ihf.info. “We go with expectations, as always, of trying to reach the final, but we are coming with a bit of a different team to the one we had in China, mixing the experience of some players with some new additions as well, to profit well from the competition and add new people to the squad. 

“We are very happy to participate in the finals as it is a very important tournament that helps the development of beach handball worldwide. We are eager to start playing already, to be in João Pessoa, where the setting looks spectacular.”

Argentina will be hoping to see off Brazil for the title, but their neighbours will look to continue making history in the event, with their third, straight Finals title after taking the 2023 and 2024 editions – both events which saw them defeat the Argentineans en route to the top of the podium.

Also standing in Argentina’s way are European sides Poland and Spain with Spain coach Juan Pablo Morillo, just like Brunati, looking for medals, but using the opportunity to introduce new blood into his team, who are appearing in a record, sixth stage of the tour since it started in 2022.

“We face this competition with great enthusiasm and the desire to finish the season with another excellent result, but the opponents we face will make this final phase a great challenge,” said Morillo to ihf.info.

“I am convinced that we will be able to play good handball and be competitive against three great teams, especially Argentina, champions of The World Games and IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship runners-up, plus Brazil, a world powerhouse, current champions of this competition, and favourites as hosts.

“Beyond the competition itself, this event should also serve as preparation for the upcoming IHF World Championship next year. Matches at this level are a great learning experience for the younger players and a special highlight for us in Brazil will be the senior debut of Carlota Bravo, the result of the excellent work done with the youth national team, who European and World champions.”

Poland have been here before, finishing as runners-up in the 2023 IHF Beach Handball Global Tour: Finals in Doha, Qatar, losing 2-0 to Brazil in the final, following the same score in the group stage. On the first-ever stage of the tour, in 2022, in Gdansk, Poland lost 2-0 (22:14, 12:6) to Spain on home sand.

Underdogs Argentina look to see-off title-holders and world champions

In the men’s competition, the hosts are also the reigning champions, and Morillo’s compatriot, Juan Antonio Vázquez, coach of the Spain men, knows the challenge will be tough, with the additional challenge of missing some key players – plus facing current world champions Croatia.

“There are players we couldn’t bring, and our beach handball rhythm has been limited since the Spanish championship, except for a few who played in the EHF Champions Cup. Given this scenario, we’ll try to make the most of the two or three training sessions beforehand, compete well, and win the two matches that would allow us to play in Sunday’s final,” he said to ihf.info.

“But we face the finals with great enthusiasm and a strong sense of responsibility in representing the Spanish federation and the national team. We come from a summer in which both the women’s and men’s teams have shown a very high level, and our goal is to continue along that path: to maintain the good results and close the 2025 season in the best possible way.”

Looking to cause an upset will be Argentina, with the team led by coach Sebastián Ferraro and featuring some fresh faces. Argentina faced Brazil twice in stage 1 of the 2023 tour, losing twice, and lost against them twice again in stage 1 of the 2024 tour, in the preliminary group and semi-final.

“The finals stage is a benchmark for some players who have not been able to compete with the senior national team yet, including a core group of players from the youth teams like Juan Bautista Dirr. We will also use this opportunity to include Santino Sposito and Nahuel Baptista, who have not been able to compete with Argentina for more than a year due to different injuries, so they will return after a long time and we know what these players represent to us,” said Ferraro.

“We are very happy to be able to participate as it is the first time we will compete in the finals stage of the IHF Beach Handball Global Tour. We had already participated in the previous stages in Brazil in two other editions, and now being with the top teams in the world is truly a privilege.”

The Finals stage represents the third continent the IHF Beach Handball Global Tour has visited in 2025 with five nations from two continents competing across a total of 16 games (eight each in the men’s and women’s competitions) for the right to be called the ‘2025 IHF Beach Handball Global Tour Champions’.

The first three sessions of the four-session event will see the four teams in each competition play each other once in the preliminary stage, which features an evening session on Friday 7 November and a morning and evening session on Saturday 8 November.

After the preliminary stage has completed, the top two teams in each group will play-off directly in the final for the gold medal, and title, while the third and fourth-placed teams will do battle for bronze.

The evening session on Sunday 9 November will feature the medal matches, with the men’s bronze-medal match taking place at 16:30 and final at 18:30, while the women’s bronze-medal match will be played at 15:30 and final at 17:30.

All games will be streamed live and free on the IHF YouTube Competitions channel HERE.

2025 IHF Beach Handball Global Tour – Stage 3: Finals
Date: 7 to 9 November
Location: João Pessoa, Brazil
Men's teams: Argentina (ARG), Brazil (BRA), Croatia (CRO), Spain (ESP)
Women's teams: Argentina (ARG), Brazil (BRA), Poland (POL), Spain (ESP)

Match Schedule

Friday 7 November

Men’s competition
18:50    CRO vs ARG
20:30    BRA vs ESP

Women’s competition
18:00    ARG vs ESP
19:40    BRA vs POL

Saturday 8 November

Men’s competition
10:20    ESP vs ARG
12:00    CRO vs BRA

18:20    ESP vs CRO
20:00    ARG vs BRA

Women’s competition
09:30    POL vs ARG
11:10    BRA vs ESP

17:30    POL vs ESP
19:10    ARG vs BRA

Sunday 9 November

Men’s competition
16:30    3/4 Placement/Bronze-Medal Match
18:30    Final/Gold-Medal Match

Women’s competition
15:30    3/4 Placement/Bronze-Medal Match
17:30    Final/Gold-Medal Match

*All times local (Brazil) / Competition Management has the right to change the order and the time of the matches.

About the IHF Beach Handball Global Tour

The IHF Beach Handball Global Tour was launched at the 2022 IHF Men’s and Women’s Beach Handball World Championships in Greece and debuted in Gdansk, Poland, with Croatia winning the men’s tournament and Spain taking the top spot in the women’s tournament.

The following year, in 2023, the IHF Beach Handball Global Tour visited Brazil, Tunisia and Poland before the Finals Stage was held in Qatar with Qatar’s men and Brazil’s women taking the overall titles.

The 2024 IHF Beach Handball Global Tour was held in Brazil, Spain and finals, again in Qatar, where Brazil won both the men’s and women’s events.

2025 represents the fourth edition of the IHF Beach Handball Global Tour. Stage 1 took place in Hammamet, Tunisia, and was won by Spain’s women and Croatia’s men in June. Stage 2 was played in Laredo, Spain in July, with the host nation winning both competitions. The final stage – Stage 3 – will conclude the 2025 tour in João Pessoa, Brazil.

In a senior IHF Beach Handball World Championship or The World Games year, the IHF Beach Handball Global Tour Team consists of three stages, with non-event years reverting back to four stages. This year, The World Games took place in August, in the People’s Republic of China.