It’s quite hard to be believe that 22-year-old Denmark left wing Emma Friis made her senior national team debut well over three years ago, in September 2018.

However, after scoring twice in a friendly match victory against Norway and then scoring the same amount the following day against the same opposition in a loss it would be another 900 days before her next senior appearance, against France in March 2021 and then a further seven months until her first competitive senior game, against Austria in a European Championship Qualifier.

Spain 2021 is set to represent another first for the Herning-Ikast Handball left wing – her debut championship with the ‘A’ team and it comes after impressive IHF Women’s Youth and Junior World Championship appearances in Slovakia in 2016 and Hungary in 2018, respectively, where she was voted into the All-star Team on both occasions. 

“It's very, very special and it's a big, big experience,” said Friis to ihf.info ahead of Denmark’s clash against Tunisia on Thursday (2 December). 

“Thinking about the IHF Women’s Youth and Junior World Championships, this is definitely a level up, so it's crazy. In Hungary, there were a lot of people and that was very nice and a very big experience as well, but I hadn’t really thought about it so much before we came here to Spain and went to the arena [to train], it was so big.

“It's been a dream for me since I was little, it's a special feeling, I'm very, very, very happy, very honoured and it’s really amazing,” added Friis about stepping up to the senior squad. “It's a very good group [of players] and they are very good to fit you in. We are a group with both young and a little bit older players, so it's good for the team dynamics to just switch it up.

“You can feel the atmosphere among the group is just kind of intense, everyone is very excited. I'm a little bit nervous, but right now I’m mostly excited. It's very big and I really want to enjoy it.

As the newest player set to make her senior competition debut, Friis is well aware of her ‘young’ and ‘new’ player labels and while she respects those tags, she is keen to show the world why she is at the very top and will work hard to stay there.

“This has been a dream for me, to come here, so, of course I just don't want to be the ‘new Emma’, ‘the new young Emma’ and I don't think that everyone sees me like that – they have seen me in our home league [in Denmark] as well so they have a good understanding of how I'm playing and that I deserve to be here,” explained Friis.

“The most important thing for me now is to establish myself on this team and that motivates me to keep on training and keep on doing a good presentation.”

Presenting herself – and the team – is down to dedicated work of the Danish coaching team, led by head coach Jesper Jensen and Friis paid tribute to them ahead of Spain 2021 and her wider coaching circle at home, especially over the interrupted past 20 months.

“We had individual talks with both our head coach and assistant coach last week,” said Friis about the Danish preparation for Spain 2021. “We also have a lot of mental preparing as a team and one in the evening for the first game. There's a lot of people with us [and we have] different ways to optimise our presentation. 

“This team, but also the medical and physio staff at Herning-Ikast Handball, were very good at making alternative programmes [during COVID lockdown]; how to keep in shape and to keep the strength going as well. It's been hard, COVID has been hard for everyone, but I think it's all about motivation. I was just kind of doing it with the look on how it was going to be when it was going to be okay again, so we had to keep ourselves in shape.

“I was with my family and two or three friends,” added Friis about her lockdown in Herning, her hometown. “Otherwise, it was just me and my family and it was very nice. I was very lucky, especially on the Danish squad – I talked to Kathrine Heindahl (who plays for CSKA Moscow) and she was in Russia back then and all alone.”

At the 2019 IHF Women’s World Championship Denmark missed out on possible Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 qualification with a draw against Serbia and then at home at the 2020 European Championships, lost the bronze medal match against Croatia.

For Friis, these results have inspired the squad to be even better and they come to Spain full of optimism.

“I was at home watching the [Serbia] game and it was just really very hard to see how devastated everyone was, missing the Olympic chance,” she said. “But I think we're in a good place right now, both the team and individuals. We're really feeling like a good squad. If we can take that into the court, it would be amazing. The most important message [we have been getting] is that we just keep doing what we do in training.”

Away from the senior squad, Friis has found happiness in education both in and out of handball, with some of her greatest pleasure gained from coaching at the small ‘Rydhave Slots Efterskole’ school.

“I was a handball teacher last year at a school, a part time job,” explains Friis with a smile. “Now I actually started studying, besides handball and I like doing it. It's kind of normal for the players in the squad. Either some are studying or other ones are having part time jobs, most of us here are studying besides playing handball.

“For me, I like to just kind of switch off, read and learn and I actually think I'm a better handball player, because of the coaching, really.

“I just like seeing them succeed,” adds Friis about what she enjoys the most about coaching the male and female players, aged 15 to 17 years old. 

“I always tell them to make all the mistakes now and just keep on training. I can kind of identify myself in some of the kids, so it's very nice to just see them growing [on court] and also in person. I get a lot out of it.”