Men’s handball has been a bit strange. We have seen dynasty’s like the Swedish and the French, but generally speaking the top 10 or whatever teams are extremely evenly matched (so these dynasty’s should have been possible). I’m not sure where I would place Sweden. In terms of “stars” they are not all that high up, but difficult to argue against their results over the last years. I agree it feels like they are “overachieving”, but when you do year after year one might want to reevaluate - and start to think they might be better than first assumed.
I have no idea how I would rank the top teams now. Denmark got ridiculous depth with good and very good player and generally speaking fantastic goalkeeping. I would still take Norway except for goalkeeping in terms of player for player in attack, but Norway hasn’t played well as a team (except for individual matches) for quite some time now. And even when they were good they completely failed in the finals. Losing is fair enough, but being crushed like they did is different. France and Spain are good, but they rely quite heavily on some ageing players now. Then there are so many teams who can get to the later rounds. Egypt has made it. Some of the “traditional” countries like Croatia will at times have great teams. Germany is often surprisingly poor considering the strength of their league, but obviously will have great teams at times etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see quite a few different teams reaching tournament finals over the next years. I don’t see a new Sweden or France popping up. Denmark might be the closest. If Hansen and Landin had been 10 years younger maybe.
A close friend of mine is a former professional handball player from Spain. So I’m a bit torn for the final. I always support Sweden, at least when all the other Nordic teams are out, but I know my friend really really wants Spain to win. Leaning slightly towards Sweden in terms of support and towards Spain in terms of who I think will win. Considering I got both semi’s wrong - this looks promising.