Montenegro national handball team


The Montenegro national handball team represents Montenegro in international handball competitions. The national team was formed in 2006 shortly after Montenegro became independent.
Montenegro played their first official match on 3 January 2007 in Vantaa and beat Finland.
Since then, Montenegro have qualified for six big competitions – once for the World Cup and for the European Championship in 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.

History and records

The national side first appeared in the Euro 2008 Qualifiers, which started in January 2007. After the great success in the qualifying matches, Montenegro participated at the European Championship 2008, where they finished in the second group phase.

A year later, Montenegro failed to qualify for the World Championship 2009 and after that, there was a crisis in the results of national team.

From 2012, results improved. After a surprise win against Sweden in the qualifiers, Montenegro qualified for the World Championship 2013.

In June 2013, Montenegro eliminated Germany in the final round of qualifiers for the European Championship 2014. At the Championship, Montenegro was eliminated in the first phase.

Two years later, the Montenegrin team appeared at the European Championship 2016, but was eliminated after the first phase of the competition, without any win in three matches. Same result, Montenegro made on European Championship 2018. Finally, on European Championship 2020, Montenegro made historical victory against Serbia , but failed to qualify to the second round of tournament.

National team matches

Updated: February 29, 2020

Records

;Largest victory: 41:27, –, 6 January 2007, Budva
;Largest defeat: 39:23, –, 24 January 2011, Stavanger
;Highest home attendance: 5,985, – 32:31, 10 April 2019, Podgorica
;Highest away attendance: 11,835, – 37:26, 13 April 2019, Copenhagen

Competitive record

World Championship

The national team of Montenegro made their first appearance at the World Cup in 2013, from their 3rd qualifying attempt. Their first World Cup match was played on 12 January 2013 against Argentina in Granollers, Spain.

European Championship

Debut on the European Championship, Montenegrin national team made after first attempt.

They participated at the Euro 2008 and made successful appearance in their first match against Russia. They qualified for the Main Phase of the European Championship.

Their second appearance was in 2014, after Montenegro sensational eliminated Germany during the qualifiers. At the tournament, Montenegro lost all three games, with elimination after the first phase.

Montenegro hoped for a better result in 2016, but it was pretty much deja vu from two years ago as they once again lost all three games and finished in last place in their group, as well as last place in the tournament claiming 16th place out of 16 teams.

Team

Current squad

Squad for the 2020 European Men's Handball Championship.
Head coach: Zoran Roganović
;Uniforms
1st: red/red '
2nd: white/white '
3rd: black/black

Technical staff

Since independence, Montenegro was led by eight different coaches. Most matches as a Montenegro coach have Zoran Kastratović .
* Data is only for official matches.

Notable former players