09.12.2011, 11:59
World Championship in Brazil - over 100 WCL players involved

The World Championship in Brazil contains numerous EHF Women's Champions League players.

104 players of EHF Women's Champions League clubs at World Championship in Brazil

Facts and figures about the European top women’s clubs and top nations – Montenegro lead in all rankings

368 players feature in the 24 participating nations for the XX Women’s World Championships in Brazil. 12 teams from Europe (including defending world champions Russia and EHF EURO 2010 champions Norway) are fighting for the title, the medals or the tickets for the London 2012 Olympic Qualification Tournaments in May 2012.

A huge number of these players are currently playing for the top European clubs who are competing in the EHF Women’s Champions League. In total 104 players are contracted at those 16 clubs who have participated in the Group Phase and it could have been even more, as several players like Gro Hammerseng or Tonje Larsen (both Larvik) or Cristina Neagu or Ionela Stanca (both Valcea) are not able to participate in Brazil due to injuries or pregnancies whilst nations like Hungary or Slovenia with their top EHF Women's Champions League clubs Audi ETO Györ and Krim Mercator did not qualify for the final tournament. Even though those nations did not qualify, Krim currently have five players in Brazil and Györ have four.

For more information about the EHF Women's Champions League click HERE.

The EHF Women's Champions League club with the highest number of World Championship players is Buducnost Podgorica: 13 of them are currently in Brazil, including 11 of 16 nominated players of the Montenegro national side. The second ranked team is Itxako from Spain with 11 players, ahead of Romania side Oltchim Valcea (nine) and Hypo Niederösterreich with their eight players representing World Championship hosts Brazil.

By looking upon the nations those players come from, Viborg HK from Denmark have the largest variety, as their eight players come from six countries playing for the three times EHF Women's Champions League winner. Second ranked in this statistics is again Itxako with players from five countries.  Every of those 16 EHF Champions League clubs have at least three players in Brazil. Defending EHF Women's Champions League champions Larvik have only five players in Brazil, ranking ninth in the overall club list.

Club ranking:
1 Buducnost Podgorica (MNE): 13 players from 3 countries
2 Itxako Navarro (ESP): 11 players from 5 countries
3 Oltchim Valcea (ROU): 10 players from 2 countries
4= Hypo Niederösterreich: 8 players from 1 country (Brazil)
4= Podravka Koprivnica (CRO): 8 players from 1 country (Croatia)
4= Viborg HK (DEN): 8 players from 6 countries
7 FC Midtjylland (DEN): 7 players from 3 countries
8 Metz Handball: 6 players from 3 countries
9= Krim Mercator (SLO): 5 players from 2 countries
9= Larvik HK (NOR): 5 players from 1 country (Norway)
11= Byasen Trondheim (NOR): 4 players from 2 countries
11= Thüringer HC (GER): 4players from two countries
11= Audi ETO Györ (HUN): 4 players from three countries
11= Buxtehuder SV (GER): 4 players from 2 countries
15 Randers HK (DEN): 3 players from 2 countries
16 HC Volgograd: 3 players from 1 country (Russia)

13 of in total 24 World Championship participants have players from current EHF Women's Champions League clubs in their team rosters.

Iceland is the only European team without any current experience and only two participating nations from outside Europe have EHF Women's Champions League players in their squads. Brazil with in total 11 (including eight Hypo players) and Tunisia with two players from Byasen and Viborg.

The nation with the biggest number of EHF Women's Champions League players in their squad is Montenegro – mainly because of those 11 Buducnost stars they can count on 14 of their 16 nominated players coming from EHF Women's Champions League clubs. Second ranked is Croatia with 13 of 16 EHF Women's Champions League players, followed by Norway and Brazil with 11 each.

Defending World Champions Russia and runners-up France only have five EHF Women's Champions League players each in their teams and rank only ninth in the list.

Nation ranking:
1 Montenegro: 14 players from EHF Women's Champions League clubs
2 Croatia: 13 players
3= Brazil: 11 players
3= Norway: 11 players
5. Romania: 10 players
6. Denmark: 9 players
7= Germany: 8 players
7= Spain: 8 players
9= France: 5 players
9= Russia: 5 players
11 Netherlands: 4 players
12 Sweden: 3 players
13 Tunisia: 2 players

Photos courtesy of the IHF

TEXT: Björn Pazen