European Men's Handball Championship Preview & Betting Guide

European Men's Handball Championship

First held in 1994, the 2026 European Men's Handball Championship will be only the seventeenth edition of the tournament and we will be looking ahead to that tournament in this blog as well as highlighting where you find the European Men's Handball Championship betting tips and will also look back at past winners.

France will be looking to defend their title in 2026 after beating Denmark in the 2024 final, they have now moved on to five golds, just one behind the most successful country, Sweden.

Denmark will be out for revenge after their narrow defeat in the final at the last tournament, France needed extra time to beat them and Denmark have now made 4 of the last 9 finals.

European Men's Handball Championship Content

• European Men's Handball Championship Preview
• European Men's Handball Championship Past Winners
• European Men's Handball Championship Betting Tips
• European Men's Handball Championship Medal Table

ALSO READ

European Women's Handball Championship Preview & Betting Guide

2026 European Men's Handball Championship Preview

The 2026 European Men's Handball Championship will be jointly hosted by Denmark, Norway and Sweden and will take place in January 2026. The first games will take place on the 15th of January 2026 and they will run through to the final on the 1st of February 2026.

There will be a total of four venues used for this tournament, Norway will host their games in Oslo at the Telenor Arena, matches in Denmark will be played in Herning at the Jyske Bank Boxen whilst Sweden will have two venues, the Kristianstad Arena and the Malmö Arena.

There will be a total of twenty-four countries competing, to start with they will be split into six groups of four, the top two from Groups A, B and C will make up Group I.

The top two countries from Groups D, E & F will advance to Group II, and points and goals will be carried over for results against other teams who advanced.

Matches for Groups A & B will be played at the Jyske Bank Boxen, Group C & D matches will take place at the Telenor Arena whilst the two locations in Sweden will host matches from Group E & F.

Once the group games are done, the main round will all take place in Herning, Denmark at the Jyske Bank Boxen.

2026 European Men's Handball Championship Venues

• 15,000 - Oslo, Norway (Telenor Arena)
• 13,000 - Malmö, Sweden (Malmö Arena)
• 12,500 - Herning, Denmark (Jyske Bank Boxen)
• 4,700 - Kristianstad, Sweden (Kristianstad Arena)

European Men's Handball Championship Past Winners

Spain went into the 2022 tournament looking to win a third consecutive tournament, a feat only ever achieved once before when Sweden won three on the spin between 1998 & 2002. They made the final and their chances of a third consecutive title looked to be on track, however, Sweden stood in their way, the only country ever to achieve this feat and they would end up denying them with a 27-26 win in one of the closest finals in recent years.

European Men's Handball Championship Betting Tips

When it comes to the European Men's Handball Championship betting predictions you have a choice, you can head over to our best handball tipsters page, here we only display tipsters who have shown a profit over the past twelve months for their handball predictions.

Alternatively, you can head to the handball predictions page, each upcoming match will be listed here from all handball tournaments with the most predicted outcome being highlighted, it also has links to match pages where you can view all of the markets and all of the tips.

If this is your first experience of handball betting or if you simply want to know more then head over to the best bookie for handball betting article where we will give you a helping hand by highlighting who is best to bet with and more.

Last Five Tournament Favourite Statistics

The success of the favourites has been pretty consistent over the last five tournaments except for 2020, in 2016 we saw 62.50% of favourites win, 65.96% in 2018, 64.62% in 2022 and then 61.54% in 2024 so as you can see not much between those, however, in 2020 the favourites won 76.92% of their games which is well above the average of the other four tournaments. The average of the last five tournaments stands at 66.55% which is a bit lower than then the women's equivalent of this tournament, their favourite win rate stands at 72.34% over the last five tournaments.

• 2016: 30-48 (62.50%)
• 2018: 31-47 (65.96%)
• 2020: 50-65 (76.92%)
• 2022: 42-65 (64.62%)
• 2024: 40-65 (61.54%)
• Overall: 193-290 (66.55%)

Last Five Tournament Goal Statistics

The average number of goals over the last five tournaments has been 55.64 with a total of 290 with 90% of the matches featuring over 46 goals, 88% with over 47.5 goals and 76% with over 50 goals, there have been 69 games with 60 or more goals which is the reason for the high average number, there have also been 67 games which have featured under 50 goals so it can swing either way but a 50 goal mark is a good starting point.

• Over 50: 223 Games (76.90%)
• Over 52.5: 194 Games (66.90%)
• Over 55: 146 Games (50.34%)
• Over 57.5: 109 Games (37.59%)
• Over 60: 69 Games (23.79%)
• Over 62.5: 53 Games (18.28%)

European Men's Handball Championship Medal Table

With their two most recent wins, the Spanish have now collected the most medals at these tournaments with a total of nine, however, only two of those have been golds, the same number as both Denmark and Germany. Ahead of those three is France which has won a total of four golds and leading the way is Sweden, the country that won four of the first five tournaments, those are their only four golds.