The Netherlands national handball team is the national handball team of Netherlands and is controlled by the Netherlands Handball Association.
Unlike the very successful women's team, The Netherlands men's team qualified just twice for the World Championships (1961, 2025). For the 2023 World Men's Handball Championship The Netherlands received a wildcard and reached the Main Round finishing 14th overall. The team improved this result in the 2025 event to a 12th place in the final ranking.
The current squad led by starplayers Luc Steins and Kay Smits is steadily closing the gap with the leading European teams by qualifying three consecutive times for the European Championships (2020, 2022 and 2024). In only their second ever appearance at EHF EURO 2022 the Dutch men's team won three matches and drew one. The Dutch did qualify for the Main Round as well and finished as 10th overall.
Competitive record World Championship World Championship record Year Round Position 1938 did not qualify 1954 1958 1961 Preliminary round 11 2 0 0 2 18 54 1964 did not qualify 1967 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 / 2019 2021 / 2023 Main round 14 6 3 0 3 177 165 // 2025 Main round 12 6 3 1 2 212 200 2027 Did not qualify / 2029 Future events // 2031 Total 3/32 – 14 6 1 7 407 419
European Championship European Championship record Year Round Position 1994 did not qualify 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 // 2020Preliminary round 17th 3 1 0 2 80 94 / 2022Main round 10th 7 3 1 3 200 215 2024 Main round 12th 7 2 1 4 224 222 // 2026 Preliminary round 15th 3 1 0 2 91 97 // 2028 Future events 2030 2032 Total 4/20 – 20 7 2 11 595 628
Team Current squad Squad for the 2026 European Men's Handball Championship.
Head coach: Staffan Olsson
References
External links
IHF profile