Spain’s women and Germany’s men have won the EHF Men’s and Women’s U17 (Youth) Beach Handball European Championships, held in Alanya, Türkiye from 3 to 6 July.

Known officially as the ‘YAC17 EHF Beach Handball EURO 2025’, the title win for Spain is their second major title in as many weeks after they lifted the 2025 IHF Women’s Youth (U17) Beach Handball World Championship on 22 June in Hammamet, Tunisia.

With their title, Germany’s men got some small revenge, seeing off Spain in the semi-final on their way to gold – the Spanish team beating them 2-0 in the gold medal match in Tunisia last month.

Spain’s women sweep aside opponents and breeze to European gold

Coach Inma Navarrete had said pre-championships that after their world championship gold all teams were looking to beat her Spain side but none managed in the eight games they played in Alanya.

A near-perfect tournament saw the Spanish win all five of their preliminary group games, against Switzerland (30:16, 30:10), Czechia (21:20, 30:28), Ukraine (22:11, 22:16), Türkiye (24:10, 18:4) and Poland (27:14, 21:12) before Croatia took the only set off them, in the quarter-finals, before Spain grabbed the shoot-out win 2-1 (12:13, 13:10, SO 6:0).

A repeat of the world championship final handed another defeat to Germany, 2-0 (21:18, 23:14), this time in the semi-final, while Norway were eased past in the final for gold 2-0 (28:20, 17:14). With defending U16 and U17 EURO champions Netherlands not present, it was a new name on the trophy this year.

Tunisia 2025 world championship silver medallists Germany finished fourth, losing the bronze medal match 2-0 to France, who finished sixth in North Africa. Hungary finished one lower than in Tunisia, in fifth, the same as Croatia (8th), while Bulgaria finished in the same position, 13th.

Spain’s Carlota Bravo Garcia was named in her second, successive tournament All-star Team, grabbing the joint MVP award, after she picked up two spots (left wing and top-scorer). in the Tunisia 2025 Women’s All-star Team.

Sharing the MVP award with her was Norway’s Berthe Berge Maelum, with best goalkeeper going to Germany’s Milena Grimm, Petra Gudelj (Croatia) winning best defender and her team taking the Fair Play award, while Serbia’s Jelena Mirkovic top-scored, with 141 points.

With revenge secured, perfect Germany grab EURO gold in world championship final replay

Germany’s men put the disappointment of losing the world championship final two weeks previously behind them as they completed a perfect tournament in Alanya, winning all eight of their games 2-0.

The preliminary group stage saw them take five straight wins, seeing off Italy (22:10, 20:17), Serbia (16:14, 12:10), Netherlands (22:12, 22:18), Ukraine (22:6, 24:16) and Croatia (20:19, 20:18).

Sweden were easily dispatched in the quarter-finals (17:10, 17:6) and then surprise package Czechia in the semi-finals (22:14, 25:14).

This set up a Tunisia 2025 World Championship final replay, Germany facing Spain, who beat them 2-0 (16:8, 15:12) in Hammamet last month. But this time around it would be a different story with an almost direct turnaround in score, Spain winning 2-0, dominating the first set to win 18:6 and then doing just enough in the second, 19:15, to stand top of the podium.

“The boys have incredible mental strength,” said Germany coach Konrad Bansa to handball.net. “The goalkeeper and defence were really strong again, and we scored some spectacular goals up front; it was a fantastic performance. You can only be proud, it's just too good.”

Czechia would take bronze thanks to a 2-1 (20:23, 19:18, SO 7:2) shoot-out win over 2023 U17 and 2024 U16 European champions Hungary. Czechia kept in contention with a golden goal in the second set and, led by tournament top scorer Matous Khek, they held their nerve in the shoot-out to take a clear win. It was the Hungarians second, successive fourth place in competition, following the same ranking at Tunisia 2025.

Croatia, the only other European team who appeared at Tunisia 2025, where they finished 10th, went two better, finishing eighth.

None of the Tunisia 2025 Men’s All-star Team managed to repeat the feat in Türkiye, with the awards split between Spain, Germany, Hungary, Czechia and Croatia.

The southern Turkish beach city now welcomes the senior EURO, which starts on Tuesday (8 July).

The YAC17 EHF Beach Handball EURO 2025 is the 15th edition of the younger age European Championships which started back in 2008 with the YAC18 in Hungary. Since then, age groups have varied, depending on the year, ranging from YAC16-19.

All-star Teams

Women's competition
MVP: Carlota Bravo Garcia (Spain) 
Best goalkeeper: Milena Grimm (Germany)
Best defender: Petra Gudelj (Croatia) 
Top scorer: Jelena Mirkovic (Serbia) – 141 points 
Fair Play: Croatia

Men’s competition
MVP: Hugo Guerrero Diaz (Spain)
Best goalkeeper: Bjarne Rollmann (Germany)
Best defender: Bence Habda (Hungary)
Top scorer: Matous Khek (Czechia) – 168 points
Fair Play: Croatia

Final Rankings

Women’s competition
1 Spain
2 Norway
3 France
4 Germany
5 Hungary
6 Sweden
7 Czechia
8 Croatia
9 Romania
10 Poland
11 Türkiye
12 Serbia
13 Bulgaria
14 Ukraine
15 Lithuania
16 Switzerland
17 Slovakia
18 Italy

Men’s competition
1 Germany
2 Spain
3 Czechia
4 Hungary
5 Netherlands
6 Sweden
7 France
8 Croatia
9 Switzerland
10 Norway
11 Serbia
12 Poland
13 Lithuania
14 Bulgaria
15 Ukraine
16 Türkiye
17 Romania
18 Italy

Credit photo: EHF / Kolektiff / Saša Pahič Szabo