New rules accelerate the game towards total handball

The perfect football game, said the Italian philosophy, is the one that ends 0-0.

Johan Cruyff, and the fans, who enjoyed it, demonstrated his fallacy when he proposed, and put into practice, that perfection led to nothing, that perfection was in any case simplicity, that in football it was about scoring a goal more than the rival, and if that led to a 5-4 win, better than 1-0.

The prophet of total football was 40 years ago the personal god of Juan Carlos Pastor, goalkeeper and handball coach, who since he was a child set out to build in his sport what Cruyff had done in football, and embarked on the path towards total handball.

And he always followed his doctrine, the ideological key to total football: “Playing well and not winning makes no sense;

winning without a game philosophy doesn't have it either"

"And we are getting closer to total handball," says Pastor, 54,

for contradicting his older brother, who told him in the 74 World Cup that he was going with Germany.

Still a child, Pastor began to train other children in his school, and he had the little ones defend in midfield, far from the nine-meter line.

He built his style in the Michelin and Valladolid, led the Spanish team to its first World title and has been coaching Pick Szeged, a regular Hungarian club in the Champions League, for years.

“Specialist players are over.

Now everyone has to attack and defend, and at full speed.

Handball already requires total players”.

“Before there were more specialized players.

Now everyone has to know how to attack and defend, be faster, have double intelligence”, agrees Imanol Arruti, coach of the women's Bera Bera and one of the coaches of the women's team.

“Players of 2.10 meters and 130 kilos, if they are not fast they are no longer worth it”.

More information

The pyramid of Spanish handball success

The evolution has been long, a couple of decades, but the regulation revolution carried out from this season by the IHF, the international federation, has accentuated and settled it.

There are three new rules.

The first is that the game does not stop to serve after a goal, but rather resumes in motion whenever the ball passes by a player who is in a circle of four meters in diameter that has been painted in the center of the pitch.

Each goal conceded is now an occasion for a counterattack, or

, as handball people say.

There is hardly any time to make changes, to introduce defensive players.

The second rule states that from the moment the referee raises his arm to warn, the attacking team is obliged to shoot on goal after a maximum of four passes, and not six, as before.

And the third: the player who, when shooting, hits the goalkeeper's head with the ball will suffer a two-minute exclusion.

The punishment is so harsh that the goalkeepers already know that when he enters a full-back at an angle, or a winger, he can think about defending other areas, knowing that he is not going to shoot at the head.

The rules adapt to the revolution of the game and the goals multiply.

As Cruyff prophesied for his football that everyone aspires to know how to play, in handball the results of a lifetime, the rácanos 18-19 or a tie at 21, have given way to scores as extraordinary as the 41-42 of a Huesca-Anaitasuna in the Asobal.

And it is not an exception.

Completed nine days of the league, the average number of goals per game is 62, three goals more than in the previous season and six more than in 20-21.

And 10 of the 16 teams have an average of 30 goals or more, when in the previous course there were seven teams and three in 20-21.

Antonio Carlos Ortega's Barça, with an average of 38 goals, leads the scoreboard in the same way as it does in the European Champions League, where, with the same average of 38, in a competition in which 11 of the 16 participants also reach an average of 30 or more goals.

The German Magdeburg, master in the new game, however, stopped Barça in the Club World Cup final 41-39.

They are games without respite, without pause, and television producers must train to broadcast at the new pace.

"You could say that it is a

of handball," says Arruti.

“It's not street runner, it's basketball.

He continues to defend well, but differently.

Now he defends himself with his legs, not just with his body or hands.

Coming off the line, harassing to force the attacker to dribble, he plays smarter, reading the game.

It is not about closing down and going together to block on the line.

There are more outlets."

Pastor simplifies the revolution.

“There are more goals because there are more possessions.

There are more and faster attacks.

But it's not just now.

Before it was also removed quickly and fewer changes were also made.

We had already spoken: a player who does not attack and defend is going to have a difficult time.

Now he accentuates ”.

The team that serves now wins a second and a half or two meters, and to take better advantage of it, the goalkeeper has to be very skillful to get the ball out of the goal quickly.

"But sometimes the ball gets tangled in the nets, because we use so much glue [adhesive so that the ball doesn't slip in the hands] that it doesn't come out..." adds Pastor, who since he was 14 years old knew where the wind was blowing. wind, and is already thinking of new developments.

goals

when you are behind.

It hasn't been seen as much yet, but it will be seen..."

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