Throughout the 48 games of the 2023 IHF Women’s World Championship Preliminary Round, which started on Wednesday 29 November and finished on Tuesday 5 December there have been some impressive individual performances.

Every single match - like all at Denmark/Norway/Sweden - 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.

To read more about the award and hummel's commitment to fostering empowerment and inclusion through sports by donating handball equipment to the FANT organisation, click here. 

All three host nations, along with five other teams have a perfect record – taking all three awards in their three games to date with their continental federation, the European Handball Federation (EHF) winning 31 of the awards on offer. All five confederations represented at DEN/NOR/SWE 2023 have now won at least one award.

Three players have won the award twice, with two centre backs – Romania’s Eliza Buceschi and Islamic Republic of Iran’s Fatemeh Merikh joined by Montenegro’s goalkeeper Marta Batinovic.

Positionally-speaking, centre backs are the most favoured choice, with 13 of the 48 (27%) awards being given to those playing there, while right backs are behind in second place, with 11 awards.

And want to know what shirt to wear to be the best? As usual, the Michael Jordan legacy continues, with #23 worn by four award winners, following by three awards each for those wearing #7, #12 and #42.

hummel Player of the Match awards – Denmark/Norway/Sweden 2023
(up to end of Preliminary Round, 48 games played)

Per Team

3 – Brazil (BRA), Denmark (DEN), Iceland (ISL), Japan (JPN), Montenegro (MNE), Netherlands (NED), Norway (NOR), Sweden (SWE) – 8 teams

2 – Angola (ANG), Czechia (CZE), Spain (ESP), Hungary (HUN), Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), Romania (ROU), Senegal (SEN) – 7 teams

1 – Austria (AUT), Congo (CGO), Chile (CHI), Cameroon (CMR), Croatia (CRO), Germany (GER), Greenland (GRL), Republic of Korea (KOR), Slovenia (SLO), Ukraine (UKR) – 10 teams

0 – Argentina (ARG), France (FRA), Kazakhstan (KAZ), Paraguay (PAR), People’s Republic of China (CHN), Poland (POL), Serbia (SRB) – 7 teams

Per Confederation

African Handball Confederation (CAHB) – 6 awards
Asian Handball Federation (AHF) – 6 awards
European Handball Federation (EHF) – 31 awards
North America and the Caribbean Handball Confederation (NACHC) – 1 award
South and Central America Handball Confederation (SCAHC) – 4 awards

Per Position

13 – Centre Back
11 – Right Back
9 – Goalkeeper
6 – Left Back
5 – Left Wing
3 – Right Wing
1 – Pivot/Line Player

Per Player

2 – Eliza Buceschi (ROU) – centre back, Fatemeh Merikh (IRI) – centre back, Marta Batinovic (MNE) goalkeeper

1 – 42 players

Per Shirt Number

4 – #23
3 – #7, #12, #42
2 – #4, #8, #10, #21, #22, #32, #35, #43
1 – 19 different numbers

Per Game

To compare these stats to the same stage at Spain 2021, visit here.

*All information uses data supplied by national federations at their pre-championship technical meetings. In-depth statistics can be found on the IHF Denmark/Norway/Sweden 2023 mini-site HERE.