Unpredictable. That is the word which can be associated with the German men’s handball team in the Olympic Games not only in the last few editions, but this millennium.

A new dawn of handball in the United States of America is being headed up by the USA men’s national beach handball team, who could surprise many on the sand at Qatar 2019 after qualifying back in July with a gold medal at the first-ever edition of the North America and the Caribbean (NAC) Beach Handball Championship, which partly-replaced the Pan American event in which the USA won gold in 2016 and bronze in 2018.

With your continental rivals – and neighbours – the record winners of the IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship and with 200 million more people to choose players from, Uruguay have been perennial runners-up to Brazil.

The Uruguayans finished in second place to them at five of the former Pan American Championships, a record which was repeated in July, when the new South and Central America (SAC) Beach Handball Championship took place in Marica, Rio de Janeiro and Brazil beat Uruguay 2-0 in the final.

Mohamed Taboubi’s Tunisia men come to Qatar 2019 having booked their ticket to the debut World Beach Games with a gold medal at the 2019 African Beach Games, held in Sal, Cape Verde last June.

In Sal, Tunisia beat continental rivals Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco and Togo, in the final, 2-0, to take the first-ever continental beach title. A few weeks later they headed to Greece, to the second edition of the Mediterranean Beach Games where they ended in seventh place at the end of August.

“Sure, we are under high pressure because we are playing at home,” said Qatar men’s coach Khaled Aly to IHF.info on the eve of the 2019 ANOC World Beach Games which take place in Doha.

That Aly is happy to not shy away from the fact that a country will be expecting a gold medal shows that him, and his side, have embraced an opportunity that many sportspeople will never get – to represent their country at home in a global tournament at the highest level.

Once again, Oman ceded continental control to Qatar as they lost in the final of the 2019 AHF Men’s Asian Beach Handball Championship, back in June in P.R. of China.

The final loss against the hosts of the 2019 ANOC World Beach Games has been the case in every edition of the biennial event since 2011, but this time, there was a silver lining – Oman grabbed their continental qualification place with the Qataris having already-qualified as hosts as well as their spot at the 2020 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship in Italy.

In a four-year period from 2006-2010, the Hungarian men won silver (2006) and bronze (2007, 2009) at the EHF EURO and silver at the 2010 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship.

However, from then onwards they faced a barren run, before a run of finishing fourth three times in a row on the international stage.

Bronze was missed at the 2015 and 2017 EHF EUROs, with a heartbreaking fourth on home sand at the 2016 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship in-between, plus the 2017 World Games also ended with a 3/4 placement match loss.

Despite having one of the most developed and largest beach handball cultures in the world, Spain’s men’s team have only shown glimpses on the international stage in recent years of what that culture can produce. 

A gold medal at the 2017 EHF Men’s European championship, followed silver at the previous version (2015), while you have to go back to 2006 for their only World Championship medal, bronze.