When Mathias Gidsel made his debut for the Denmark men's senior national team in November 2020, few would have predicted that his rise would be so fast. Basically, Gidsel went from a promising talent to a stalwart in only a few months, becoming a key ingredient of Denmark's success in the last few years.

In terms of medals, the right back already has three under his belt after the first three major tournaments he featured in for Denmark – gold at the 2021 IHF Men's World Championship, silver at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and bronze at the EHF EURO 2022.

In terms of individual awards, he literally rewrote the book for young players ready to shine. At Egypt 2021, he was named the All-Star right back of the competition. A few months later, he racked up the same award plus the title of MVP at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, finishing everything off with another appearance in the All-Star team at the EHF EURO 2022.

Now, at Poland/Sweden 2023, Gidsel has every chance to slot into the All-Star team once again, while earning his first top goal scorer award in a major competition. With two matches left at the 2023 IHF Men's World Championship, Gidsel has scored 51 goals and is trailing Chile's Erwin Feuchtmann, who has 54 goals under his name but is out of contention after the South American side finished their tournament in 26th place.

"Obviously, I play for one of the best teams in the world. I am surrounded by some of the best players in the world and the offence scores a lot of goals. I am a big part of that attack, so I can score easily," says Gidsel.

"It is not necessarily my merit. Everything goes to the team and to the coach [Nikolaj] Jacobsen, who are always making me look good and designing plays where I can be at my best. It has been a true pleasure to play for Denmark and just being here once again makes it all worth it." 

Here means another semi-final at the IHF Men's World Championship, which keeps Denmark's dream alive of becoming the first team in history to win three consecutive titles. And that domination has also been highlighted by a 26-match unbeaten streak, the longest-ever in the competition, with Gidsel being an integral part of 16 of those matches.

Denmark have won 24 matches and drawn the other two, and at Poland/Sweden 2023 they have recovered after a draw against Croatia (32:32) to seal clear wins against the United States of America, Egypt and Hungary, as the opponents are getting stronger and stronger.

"Well, if you look at it, it definitely is an amazing streak, something that only a good, a very good team can put together. I have been part of this adventure, but our aim is to get to 28 matches without a loss. Because, you know, that would mean that we are world champions once again. It is amazing to be part of history and it just says something about how good Denmark have been in the last few years," says the 23-year-old right back, who will turn 24 days after the final of Poland/Sweden 2023.

The quarter-final win against Hungary was truly impressive, with the reigning champions tying the highest-ever win in this phase of the competition, a clear 17-goal domination to which their opponents had no answer. It is a theme that has been recurring in the last few years, with few teams being able to match Denmark's excellent performances in the competition.

"We're playing good handball, then the goals also come and then the wins also come. So yeah, what can I say? I am happy," adds Gidsel, who was Denmark's top scorer in the 40:23 win with nine goals. 

That performance saw him jump to second place on the top goal scorer list at Poland/Sweden 2023, making the player that switched sides last summer from Danish outfit GOG to German powerhouse Füchse Berlin one of the top candidates for the top goal scorer title.

Gidsel can become only the third Denmark player to win that title after Anders Eggert and Mikkel Hansen, and only the 21st player in history to score at least 60 goals in a single edition of the IHF Men's World Championship.

However, those individual awards would mean nothing for Gidsel if Denmark were not back in Stockholm to play the big final on Sunday after facing Spain in the first semi-final in Gdansk.

"It is only going to get tougher and tougher because only the best teams are still in the competition, so we will not get easy matches from now on. We need two more wins to win the trophy and it would be an amazing feature."

"There are going to be tough matches, so we will need everybody at 100%," concludes Gidsel.