Throughout the 2021 IHF Women’s World Championship Preliminary Round, which started on Wednesday 1 December and finished on Tuesday 7 December, a total of 48 matches were played with some impressive individual and team performances, statistically-speaking.

Every single match - like all at Spain 2021 - 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.

So far, hosts Spain along with Denmark, Hungary and Sweden have a perfect record – taking all three awards in their three games to date with their continental federation, the European Handball Federation (EHF) winning 33 of the awards on offer. All five confederations represented at Spain 2021 have now won at least one award.

Positionally-speaking, goalkeepers are the most favoured choice, with 12 of the 48 (25%) awards being given to those playing there, while right backs are behind in second place, with nine awards.

And want to know what shirt to wear to be the best? It seems that #1, #12 and #23 are the numbers for you, with four awards each allocated to these shirt wearers, reflecting the strength of goalkeepers – who usually wear #1 and #12.

hummel Player of the Match awards – Spain 2021
(up to end of Preliminary Round, 48 games played)

Per Team

3 – Denmark (DEN), Spain (ESP), Hungary (HUN), Sweden (SWE) – 4 teams

2 – Argentina (ARG), Brazil (BRA), Cameroon (CMR), France (FRA), Germany (GER), Japan (JPN), Republic of Korea (KOR), Montenegro (MNE), Netherlands (NED), Norway (NOR), Poland (POL), Romania (ROU), Slovenia (SLO) – 13 teams

1 – Austria (AUT), Congo (CGO), Croatia (CRO), Czech Republic (CZE), Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), Kazakhstan (KAZ), Paraguay (PAR), Puerto Rico (PUR), Russian Handball Federation (RHF), Serbia (SRB) – 10 teams

0 – Angola (ANG), Tunisia (TUN), Uzbekistan (UZB), People’s Republic of China (CHN), Slovakia (SVK) – 5 teams

Per Confederation

African Handball Confederation (CAHB) – 3 awards
Asian Handball Federation (AHF) – 6 awards
European Handball Federation (EHF) – 33 awards
North America and the Caribbean Handball Confederation (NACHC) – 1 awards
South and Central America Handball Confederation (SCAHC) – 5 awards

Per Position

12 – Goalkeeper
9 – Right Back
8 – Centre Back
8 – Left Back
4 – Left Wing
2 – Line Player
5 – Right Wing

Per Player

2 – Aleksandra Rosiak – left back (POL), Lee Migyeong – centre back (KOR), Marina Rajcic – goalkeeper (MNE)

1 – 42 players

Per Shirt Number

4 – #1, #12, #23

3 – #10, #22

2 – #2, #4, #16, #39

1 – #3, #5, #6, #7, #8, #11, #13, #15, #18, #19, #24, #25, #26, #33, #42, #44, #45, #62, #90, #98

Per Game

Match	Player	Country	Position	Shirt #
ESP vs ARG	Silvia Navarro	ESP	Goalkeeper	12
KOR vs CGO	Lee Migyeong	KOR	Centre back	23
AUT vs CHN	Katarina Pandza	AUT	Left back	3
CRO vs BRA	Bruna de Paula	BRA	Right back	2
GER vs CZE	Alina Grijseels	GER	Centre back	4
DEN vs TUN	Kathrine Heindahl	DEN	Line player	10
JPN vs PAR	Natsuki Aizawa	JPN	Centre back	26
HUN vs SVK	Noémie Háfra	HUN	Left back	45
FRA vs ANG	Laura Glauser	FRA	Goalkeeper	1
NED vs PUR	Bo van Wetering	NED	Left wing	12
ROU vs IRI	Cristina Laslo	ROU	Centre back	13
RHF vs CMR	Isabelle Noelle Mben Bediang	CMR	Goalkeeper	1
MNE vs SLO	Amra Pandzic	SLO	Goalkeeper	21
SWE vs UZB	Emma Lindkvist	SWE	Right back	23
NOR vs KAZ	Camilla Herrem	NOR	Left wing	23
SRB vs POL	Aleksandra Rosiak	POL	Left back	22
KOR vs TUN	Lee Migyeong	KOR	Centre back	23
AUT vs ARG	Elke Karsten	ARG	Left back	22
PAR vs CRO	Ana Turk	CRO	Right wing	33
SVK vs GER	Xenia Smits	GER	Left back	11
CGO vs DEN	Mette Tranborg	DEN	Right back	18
CHN vs ESP	Paula Arcos Poveda	ESP	Right back	62
JPN vs BRA	Adriana Cardoso	BRA	Right wing	21
HUN vs CZE	Katrin Gitta Klujber	HUN	Right back	42
SWE vs PUR	Nathalie Hagman	SWE	Right wing	24
SLO vs FRA	Grâce Zaadi Deuna	FRA	Centre back	10
UZB vs NED	Merel Freriks	NED	Line player	19
ROU vs KAZ	Daciana Hosu	ROU	Goalkeeper	98
POL vs RHF	Aleksandra Rosiak	POL	Left back	22
MNE vs ANG	Marina Rajcic	MNE	Goalkeeper	1
IRI vs NOR	Fatemeh Khalili Behfar	IRI	Goalkeeper	12
SRB vs CMR	Aleksandra Stamenic	SRB	Left wing	25
TUN vs CGO	Diane Gaelle Yimga	CGO	Right wing	7
ARG vs CHN	Luciana Mendoza	ARG	Right back	10
BRA vs PAR	Fatima Ocampos	PAR	Goalkeeper	12
CZE vs SVK	Viktoria Oguntoyova	CZE	Goalkeeper	90
DEN vs KOR	Laerke Nolsoe Pedersen	DEN	Left wing	2
ESP vs AUT	Carmen Martin	ESP	Right wing	4
CRO vs JPN	Yumi Kitahara	JPN	Right back	44
GER vs HUN	Blanka Biro	HUN	Goalkeeper	16
ANG vs SLO	Ana Gros	SLO	Right back	6
PUR vs UZB	Nathalys Ceballos	PUR	Centre back	5
KAZ vs IRI	Irina Alexandrova	KAZ	Left back	15
CMR vs POL	Karichma Kaltoume Ekoh	CMR	Centre back	39
FRA vs MNE	Marina Rajcic	MNE	Goalkeeper	1
NED vs SWE	Jamina Roberts	SWE	Left back	8
NOR vs ROU	Katrine Lunde	NOR	Goalkeeper	16
RHF vs SRB	Antonina Skorobogatchenko	RHF	Right back	39

*All information uses data supplied by national federations at their pre-championship technical meetings. In-depth statistics can be found on the IHF Spain 2021 mini-site HERE.