The 22nd edition of the Mediterranean Handball Confederation’s (MHC) Men’s Championship is underway in Šamorín, Slovakia, with 14 teams at the start, representing two continents – Europe and Africa.

Played under the traditional rules of the MHC, the championship was for U18 players with the aim of promoting development of handball amongst the younger age categories through the Mediterannean Handball Confederation.

The MHC rules of play see every match divided into three periods of 15 minutes each. In each period, the team who scores the largest number of goals receives one point. In case of a draw in a period, each team receives 0.5 points. At the end of the game, the winner is the team which has the most points and is subsequently awarded two points in the ranking of the group. Knock-out games revert to overall goals scored.

The 14 participating teams have been divided into two groups of seven teams each. Following the preliminary round, teams will advance to cross matches and placement games to determine the final standings, culminating in the final on 18 April 2026. The top two teams in each group will feature in the final.

After the first three days of competition, Egypt and Serbia are leading the way in the two groups, but the decider in Group A will likely be the match between Egypt and Spain, which is set to take place on Friday, 17 April.

So far, Egypt, whose team is built on the core which secured the silver medal at the 2025 IHF Men's Under-17 World Championship,  have won all their matches, 34:12 (11:3; 11:4; 12:5) against Greece, 25:23 (10:5; 7:8; 8:10) against North Macedonia, 32:9 (8:4; 11:2; 13:3) against Kosovo, 26:15 (8:6; 7:6; 11:3) against Montenegro and 22:14 (5:4; 7:3; 10:7) against Romania.

They are leading in the standings, with 23 points, followed by Spain (18,5 points), North Macedonia (10,5), Romania (10), Montenegro (6,5), Greece (6) and Kosovo (0,5). All teams but Egypt and Kosovo have a game in hand still to play.

In Group B, Serbia (16,5) points and Slovakia (15 points) are battling for the first place, as Serbia started the competition with two wins in the first day, 25:18 (8:4; 10:6; 7:8) against Türkiye, and 26:13 (8:5; 8:5; 10:3) against Italy.

They followed up with a 26:18 (7:8; 11:3; 8:8) win against Slovakia and a hard-fought 22:20 win over Bulgaria (5:5; 8:6; 9:9). With Slovakia winning 24:23 (6:9; 9:5; 9:9) against Tunisia, and Croatia winning 22:21 (7:6; 5:4; 10:11) against Italy, the battle for the top place in the group remains wide open.

Serbia (16,5 points), Slovakia (15 points) and Croatia (14,5 points) are still close to each other, while Italy (10,5 points), Tunisia (7 points), Türkiye (7 points) and Bulgaria (4,5 points) have been lagging behind.

On Thursday and Friday, the last matches of the preliminary round will be completed, while on Saturday, the winner of the competition will be decided. The last edition, played in 2025, was won by Spain.

Photo credit: Slovakian Handball Federation