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

*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.