Montenegro national handball team

Montenegro
Information
Nickname	Zlatni lavovi (The Golden Lions)
Association	Handball Federation of Montenegro
Coach	Zoran Roganović
Assistant coach	Anton Claesson Draško Mrvaljević Gojko Vučinić
Most caps	Mladen Rakčević (52)
Colours
Home Away
Results
World Championship
Appearances	1 (First in 2013 )
Best result	22nd (2013)
European Championship
Appearances	5 (First in 2008 )
Best result	12th (2008)
Last updated on Unknown.

The Montenegro national handball team represents Montenegro in international handball competitions. The national team was formed in 2006 shortly after Montenegro became independent.

Montenegro played their first official match on 3 January 2007 in Vantaa and beat Finland (28:26).

Since then, Montenegro have qualified for six big competitions – once for the World Cup (2013) and for the European Championship in 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.

History and records

Main article: List of official matches of the Montenegro handball team

The national side first appeared in the Euro 2008 Qualifiers, which started in January 2007. After the great success in the qualifying matches, Montenegro participated at the European Championship 2008, where they finished in the second group phase.
A year later, Montenegro failed to qualify for the World Championship 2009 and after that, there was a crisis in the results of national team.
From 2012, results improved. After a surprise win against Sweden in the qualifiers, Montenegro qualified for the World Championship 2013.
In June 2013, Montenegro eliminated Germany in the final round of qualifiers for the European Championship 2014. At the Championship, Montenegro was eliminated in the first phase.
Two years later, the Montenegrin team appeared at the European Championship 2016, but was eliminated after the first phase of the competition, without any win in three matches. Same result, Montenegro made on European Championship 2018. Finally, on European Championship 2020, Montenegro made historical victory against Serbia (22-21), but failed to qualify to the second round of tournament.

National team matches

Tournament	Matches	Wins	Draws	Loss	GF	GA
World Championship	7	1	0	6	179	204
European Championship	18	1	1	16	427	525
Qualifying matches EC/WC	62	33	6	23	1702	1752
OVERALL	87	35	7	45	2308	2491

Updated: February 29, 2020

Records

Main article: List of official matches of the Montenegro handball team § Records

Largest victory

41:27,   Montenegro –   Finland, 6 January 2007, Budva

Largest defeat

39:23,   Poland –   Montenegro, 24 January 2011, Stavanger

Highest home attendance

5,985,   Montenegro –   Denmark 32:31, 10 April 2019, Podgorica

Highest away attendance

11,835,   Denmark –   Montenegro 37:26, 13 April 2019, Copenhagen

Competitive record

World Championship

The national team of Montenegro made their first appearance at the World Cup in 2013, from their 3rd qualifying attempt. Their first World Cup match was played on 12 January 2013 against Argentina in Granollers, Spain.

World Championship							Qualification
Year	Pos.	Pld	W	D	L		Pld	W	D	L
2009	Did not qualify						2	1	0	1
2011							2	1	0	1
2013	22nd	7	1	0	6		6	5	0	1
2015	Did not qualify						2	1	0	1
2017							2	0	0	2
/ 2019							2	0	1	1
2021							Cancelled
/ 2023	TBD						TBD
/ / 2025
2027
Total		7	1	0	6		14	8	1	7

European Championship

Debut on the European Championship, Montenegrin national team made after first attempt.
They participated at the Euro 2008 and made successful appearance in their first match against Russia (25:25). They qualified for the Main Phase of the European Championship.
Their second appearance was in 2014, after Montenegro sensational eliminated Germany during the qualifiers. At the tournament, Montenegro lost all three games, with elimination after the first phase.
Montenegro hoped for a better result in 2016, but it was pretty much deja vu from two years ago as they once again lost all three games and finished in last place in their group, as well as last place in the tournament claiming 16th place out of 16 teams.

European Championship							Qualification
Year	Pos.	Pld	W	D	L		Pld	W	D	L
2008	12th	6	0	1	5		8	7	1	0
2010	Did not qualify						8	4	0	4
2012							6	1	0	5
2014	16th	3	0	0	3		6	4	0	2
2016	16th	3	0	0	3		6	3	1	2
2018	16th	3	0	0	3		6	2	3	1
/ / 2020	18th	3	1	0	2		6	3	1	2
/ 2022	To be determined						TBD
2024
Total		18	1	1	16		46	24	6	16

Team

Current squad

Squad for the 2020 European Men's Handball Championship. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Head coach: Zoran Roganović

No. Pos. Name Date of birth (age) Height App. Goals Club 2 LW Filip Vujović (1996-04-07) 7 April 1996 (age 24) 1.85 m 3 4 Frigoríficos del Morrazo 3 CB Aleksandar Glendža (1995-12-01) 1 December 1995 (age 24) 1.97 m 2 0 Slovenj Gradec 4 LW Aleksandar Bakić (2000-09-03) 3 September 2000 (age 19) 1.94 m 7 8 RK Komovi 7 RB Stefan Čavor (1994-11-03) 3 November 1994 (age 25) 1.96 m 39 82 HSG Wetzlar 8 P Vuk Lazović (1988-03-10) 10 March 1988 (age 32) 1.99 m 16 9 SK Hawks 11 RB Branko Vujović (1998-04-20) 20 April 1998 (age 22) 1.94 m 9 5 PGE Vive Kielce 12 GK Mile Mijušković (1985-10-08) 8 October 1985 (age 34) 1.92 m 32 0 BM Benidorm 13 RW Mirko Radović (1990-06-15) 15 June 1990 (age 30) 1.82 m 42 31 Eurofarm Rabotnik 16 GK Nebojša Simić (1993-01-19) 19 January 1993 (age 27) 1.91 m 31 0 MT Melsungen 19 P Branko Kankaraš (1988-08-25) 25 August 1988 (age 31) 1.92 m 14 7 Meshkov Brest 20 LB Stevan Vujović (1990-04-07) 7 April 1990 (age 30) 1.95 m 41 86 Motor Zaporizhia 21 LB Vasko Ševaljević (1988-06-21) 21 June 1988 (age 32) 1.93 m 52 222 Tremblay-en-France 24 LB Miloš Božović (1994-12-10) 10 December 1994 (age 25) 1.96 m 27 65 PPD Zagreb 25 RW Marko Lasica (1988-04-30) 30 April 1988 (age 32) 1.88 m 50 55 Beşiktaş 32 CB Božo Anđelić (1992-03-16) 16 March 1992 (age 28) 1.86 m 29 34 FTC-HungaroControl 90 P Nemanja Grbović (1990-04-26) 26 April 1990 (age 30) 1.87 m 51 125 Ceglédi KKSE 93 RB Vladan Lipovina (1993-03-07) 7 March 1993 (age 27) 1.98 m 31 76 HBW Balingen-Weilstetten

Uniforms

1st: red/red(GK: yellow)

2nd: white/white(GK: red)

3rd: black/black(GK: blue)

Technical staff

• Coach: Zoran Roganović
• Assistant Coach: Milorad Davidović
• Team Official: Petar Kapisoda
• Physiotherapist: Bojan Milošević
• Physiotherapist: Bojan Vlaisavljević

Head coaches

Since independence, Montenegro was led by eight different coaches. Most matches as a Montenegro coach have Zoran Kastratović (24).

Coach	From	To	Record*					Championship
			M	W	D	L	Win %
Pero Milošević	October 2006	June 2007	8	7	1	0	087.50	None
Ranko Popović	August 2007	November 2009	16	5	1	10	031.25	EC 2008
Kasim Kamenica	November 2009	April 2010	2	1	0	1	050.00
Miodrag Popović	April 2010	March 2011	4	1	0	3	025.00
Zoran Kastratović	May 2011	February 2014	24	10	0	14	041.67	WC 2013, EC 2014
Ljubomir Obradović	March 2014	November 2016	13	4	1	8	030.77	EC 2016
Dragan Đukić	November 2016	July 2018	11	3	3	5	027.27	EC 2018
Zoran Roganović	August 2018		9	4	1	4	044.44	EC 2020

* Data is only for official matches (qualifiers, European Championship, World Championship).

Notable former players

Petar Kapisoda Draško Mrvaljević Zoran Roganović Goran Đukanović Alen Muratović

Novica Rudović Goran Stojanović Vladimir Osmajić Ratko Đurković Fahrudin Melić

Blažo Lisičić Marko Dobrković Žarko Pejović Mladen Rakčević Igor Marković Aleksandar Svitlica

See also

• List of official matches of the Montenegro handball team
• Handball Federation of Montenegro
• Montenegro women's national handball team

References

1. ""Lavovi" počinju pripreme za Evropsko prvenstvo". rscg.me. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
2. "Miloš Vujović propušta Evropsko prvenstvo". rscg.me. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
3. 2020 European Men's Handball Championship squad

External links

• Official website
• IHF profile