Heiner Brand


Heiner Brand is a former West German handball player. He was the Germany national handball team coach from 1997 to 2011. He is the only person who has won the world handball championship both as a player and as a coach.

Career as player

Heiner Brand joined at the age of seven the handball club VfL Gummersbach. He was with that club six times German champion and won four times the DHB-Pokal. He also became with that club internationally successful.
Heiner Brand was also successful in the Germany national handball team, where he played a total of 131 games and scored 231 goals, including one penalty throw. In 1976, he was a member of the West German team that finished fourth in the Olympic tournament in Montreal. He played all six matches and scored twelve goals. In 1978, he was the World champion at the World Men's Handball Championship. His first two international goals he scored in his first game for Germany was on July 1, 1974 in Holon against Israel.

Career as coach

Heiner Brand has been a long-time coach for VfL Gummersbach. In between, he was the coach for SG Wallau-Massenheim. Even before becoming a club coach, he was an assistant coach of the German national team, in which he became the full-time coach on 1 January 1997. At the beginning of the new millennium, he raised the national team to the top. After the vice European Championship in 2002 and the vice World Cup in 2003, the DHB selection won in 2004 the European Championship and the same year the silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Athens.
It was announced on 24 October 2007 that Brand's contract of the National team with the DHB would be extended until 30 June 2013. However, it was announced on 16 May 2011 that his post of national coach would expire on 30 June 2011. The results were the tenth place at the 2010 European Championship and the eleventh place at the 2011 World Championship. It was the worst result in the history of the German National Championship. Since 1. Juli 2011 Martin Heuberger is the successor to Heiner Brand. Since 1 November 2004 Heuberger has been Assistant to Heiner Brand and Co-coach of the German National Handball team.

Personal life

Brand is married and has two children. He has two older brothers named Klaus and Jochen. Both also played for the German national handball team.
His trademark since the 1970s is his bushy walrus moustache.

Success as coach