Danish handball world champion Mikkel Hansen: powerful esthete

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Seven goals in the final against Sweden: World Champion Mikkel Hansen

Photo: 

MATHIAS BERGELD / imago images / Bildbyran

The handball players on the Swedish bench had raised their arms in protest.

They were two goals behind, the last two minutes in the World Cup final in Cairo and Denmark had been on the attack for 30 seconds.

Despite the impending time game and loss of the ball, the Danes remained calm, they played with the certainty that they would bring this attack to a successful end.

Again and again the ball flew back into the middle position - to Mikkel Hansen.

The Danish superstar was far from the goal, with practically no chance of completing it himself.

But he controls the game.

Denmark was now 43 seconds in the attack: Hansen held the ball, he looked briefly to the left, in the direction of the Swedish bench.

As if he wanted to make sure that the protesting Swedes wouldn't miss his next train either.

Then Hansen threw forward without looking, he threw the ball into the last corner of the field, hard and placed, accurate to the millimeter, to Magnus Landin and he completed the preparatory work.

It was a long attack and ended with a surprise attack.

Denmark could no longer take the world title.

It is actually not possible to name the

one

actor for Denmark's dominant role in world handball.

The World Cup final made this clear again.

Whether the outstanding and eternal goalkeeper Niklas Landin, who also fends off balls with his face if necessary, the 21-year-old Mathias Gidsel, who leads the next Danish generation, or Nikolaj Jacobsen, who in his four years as Danish national coach is already his second World Cup Celebrating a title - many faces are responsible for why Denmark remained unbeaten in a World Cup match for the 19th time in a row.

Why the selection has now celebrated the second in a row after the World Cup success in 2019.

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2011 and 2013 World Cup silver, 2019 and 2021 World Cup gold: Mikkel Hansen's collection of titles is growing

Photo: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / AFP

The 26:24 final victory against the Swedish surprise team was also thanks to Mikkel Hansen, and the 33-year-old didn't even have his very best evening.

He scored seven goals, five times he threw outside the gate.

Nevertheless, it was Hansen who left the hall as the most successful shooter of the finals and was recognized as the most valuable player of the tournament.

It's like being in a time warp.

Every two years handball world championships take place, every two years January also becomes Hansen's month.

In 2011 at the World Cup in Sweden, the then 23-year-old had his big breakthrough on the world stage, with 68 goals in ten games he was the top scorer in the finals and was appointed to the All-Star Team, Denmark won World Cup silver and Hansen the title of Welthandballers 2011. Ten years later he is still making his mark on the game.

Hansen's hard throws from a distance, his no less hard and yet well placed passes, the headband - his trademarks should make it to the most distant handball corners of the world over the years.

At this World Cup, which took place for the first time with 32 teams and thus flushed blatant outsiders into the tournament, a clearly inferior team like the Democratic Republic of the Congo even competed with the motivation to steal Hansen's headband in the game.

But in the end, when the trophy was handed over, Hansen was still wearing the headband.

He hates to lose.

Hansen, the man with the long hair and the shaggy beard, who looks like a rock star, embodies the physical game that is handball.

The force, the hardness.

But what makes Hansen really special is that he always makes clever decisions, and he remains a strategist even in pressure situations.

The scene mentioned at the beginning is representative of his calmness and game intelligence.

One might think that the Danish game is predictable, too simple-minded.

On the contrary: the attacks on Hansen are still too surprising even after ten years.

But the tournament in Egypt also showed that the next generation is growing up at Hansen's side.

The 21-year-old Gidsel was responsible for 66 Danish goals (39 goals, 27 assists), Hansen has 74 participations.

There is no need to worry about the future of Danish handball.

When a World Cup ends, when the hustle and bustle ends, it usually becomes quieter around Hansen.

He loves retreat.

About his place of residence in Paris, where he has played for PSG since 2012, he told the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" a year ago: "I live in a city where nobody knows me."

An art lover away from the hall

He is not someone who seeks the public, he rarely gives interviews and does not attend talk shows, and in metropolises with a population of over a million, where handball has not played a formative role to this day, as a handball player you can immerse yourself, move freely - and be interested in other things.

Hansen likes to visit exhibitions, boutiques and museums in his spare time.

"Art often shows a different view of the world, which I like to occupy myself with," he once said, "Handball-Inside".

His Instagram account itself is a small art exhibition (with a guarantee for legendary hats).

With such world-class athletes with a penchant for aesthetics, there is a tendency to look for an interest in art reflected in the performance.

With Hansen you can find at least the imagination.

His handball is artful, entertaining.

You like to look at it and it doesn't let go of you so quickly.

If you will, Mikkel Hansen is the esthete among handball players - with a pretty powerful touch.

With 312 goals meanwhile, he is said to be the most successful World Cup goalscorer in handball history, although this cannot be fully proven due to insufficient data.

He was the first handball player to earn more than 500,000 euros a year, and his annual salary is now just under a million euros.

The handball superstar has achieved almost everything in his career.

Only the Champions League title is still missing in Mikkel Hansen's vita.

If this succeeds with PSG this year, then it would have really been ten golden Hansen years.

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