The 54,000-Strong Faroe Islands Handball Team Shocks the World Again! A New Handball Nation is Born!

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The Faroe Islands is a breathtakingly beautiful country made up of 18 islands with a population of just 54,000! Despite its small size, its sports scene is truly remarkable.
Unforgettable victories in football against Austria, Greece, and Turkey! Historic achievements in handball!
The Faroe Islands is the smallest country ever to participate in a European Championship in any team sport! Moreover, both the men’s and women’s handball teams qualified for the continental tournament in the same year, and neither team returned home empty-handed.
The men’s team played a historic draw against Norway at the 2024 European Championship and ultimately finished in 20th place at the country’s first-ever world tournament.
Just ten months later, the women’s team achieved a similar result against Croatia, finishing 17th at the European Championship!

Previously, I wrote that the participation in the 2024 European Championship was just the beginning of a long and successful journey for the men’s and women’s handball teams of the Faroe Islands.
And things are indeed heading in that direction! The Faroese men’s national team defeated the Netherlands 32-31 away in a European Championship qualifier this past Sunday!
The Netherlands had finished 12th in both the last European Championship and World Championship and even managed to defeat the Hungarian national team on home soil at the 2022 Euros.

With this victory, the Faroe Islands jumped to the top of their group with 5 points after four rounds! Considering that in the final two matches in May, they will first play Kosovo away and then face Ukraine at home, they have a great chance not only to qualify for another European Championship but even to win their group!

Watching these young Faroese handball players is an absolute joy! They are incredibly talented and fight with immense passion.
For them, no ball is lost, they go after every single one with all their might. But that’s the only way to do it, the only way it’s worth doing!
You can see that they don’t see handball as just a job, but as their passion!
They would go through fire for each other and for their homeland! They are a fantastic team, very likable!

And they have players like Kiel’s star Elias Ellefsen á Skipagötu, who was named the world’s best young player in 2023.
Additionally, there’s 23-year-old right winger Hákun West Av Teigum from Füchse Berlin and the Swedish league’s best player, the still only 19-year-old Óli Mittún. The latter will strengthen the Danish club GOG next season.

And Their Fans?
For last year’s European Championship in Germany, an astonishing 5,000 (!) Faroese fans traveled to support their team. That means nearly 10% (!) of the entire country’s population accompanied the team to the tournament.
5,000 fans at a European handball match is already an incredibly high number, especially considering that the Faroe Islands were not the hosts. But when you realize that these 5,000 came from a country of just 54,000 people, it’s truly unbelievable, literally!

To put this into perspective:
If we scale this up to Hungary, it would be like nearly one million Hungarians traveling to cheer on their team in person! That’s obviously impossible due to arena capacities, but it
shows just how extraordinary it is that 10% of the Faroese population made the trip.
And make no mistake, wherever this team plays, in any world tournament, their fans will always be there in large numbers!

In just a few weeks, the Faroese women’s national team will try to reach another milestone, qualifying for the country’s first-ever World Championship.
They have a good chance, but what happens there will be the topic of another article.

The sport truly needed them! They are a fresh and exciting addition to the world of handball!

I can only repeat myself—just as I’ve said before:
A new handball nation is born!

Image source: freepik.com

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