How Croatia conquered the beach handball world

When Vlatka Šamarinec visited the Jarun Cup in Zagreb as a spectator last week, she realised how much she still misses beach handball, eight years after quitting the sport.

“Oh my god, I just wanted to go on the sand and play. I really miss playing,” the former captain of the Croatia women’s national team says.

Šamarinec turned 40 in April and is a mother now, but still cherishes the many memories.

“Back in those days, times were different. Nobody expected that beach handball would become something so serious,” she says. “I remember my coach from indoor handball, when we told him that we had some preparations for a beach handball tournament, he said: ‘Oh no, you are just fooling around, it is nothing serious.’ But during the years, with all the medals and the good results, they realised it is a big deal.”

Šamarinec retired from the national team after the EHF Beach Handball EURO in Lloret de Mar in 2015, ending a glorious career in which she won two European and one world title. It marked a decade of dominance in international beach handball for Croatia, with the men’s national team racking up even more silverware.

In total, Croatia have won a stunning 22 medals from major championships over the last 20 years: six golds, three silvers and three bronzes from European Championships; four golds, two silvers and a bronze from IHF World Championships; and a gold, a silver and a bronze from The World Games.

What made Croatia conquer the beach handball world in such dominating fashion? What is the secret behind the ongoing successes?

Mladen Paradžik smiles when he hears this question – again.

“The answer is not so easy,” says Paradžik, who has contributed to many of the men’s team’s triumphs – first as a player, since 2017 as the head coach.

“The most important is to have a great team and to have the support of your federation, so you can put all the pieces of the puzzle together,” he says. “Also, with the selection of players, you need to know what you want to create within the game, so you can select the players that can do this.”

Paradžik is preparing a lecture on the topic, detailing all the pillars the Croatian fortress of beach handball has been built on.

And to make it clear right away – infrastructure is no key pillar.

“In Croatia, we do not have a lot of sandy beaches, we do not have a lot of sandy courts at all. In fact, a lot of people don’t believe us. We won a lot of medals with just one court in our country. In the beginning it was like that: we had just one or two courts in Zagreb,” Paradžik says.

Meanwhile, four permanent courts are situated on the shores of lake Jarun in Zagreb, with plans to build courts in other parts of the country, too.

“It is a vicious circle: When you have more success, then more people are interested in starting to play it,” Paradžik explains. “We are now in the process of expanding it – not just for the Zagreb area, where most teams are settled, but expanding it all over Croatia. The success generates new teams and players.”

But it is not so much the number of playing facilities that determines success, it is rather a smart playing system that helps raise the level of the sport.

“When we started with beach handball in Croatia, we even had more teams than today. But those teams were not so serious, they only wanted to have a lot of fun – and that’s it,” Paradžik recalls.

The revolution started in 2007. The Croatia women had already won a silver and a bronze from two earlier Beach Handball EURO events, but the major breakthrough for the country had yet to come.

“We turned our system upside-down and said: ‘The quality is what matters, not the quantity.’ So since 2007, we have less teams, but good quality teams,” Paradžik says.

“Those good quality teams are the generators of good players, as those players have the opportunity to play against quality opponents. That is one of the crucial things we have here, as we started to take beach handball seriously as a sport many years ago.”

The new approach became fruitful very soon – sooner than anyone had expected.

Croatia had not won a medal at World Championships before but came away with gold in both the men’s and the women’s event in 2008 in Cádiz.

“As a player, for sure the World Championships which we won in 2008 are my best memory. Because it was a clean sheet, we didn’t lose any of the games. It was really a great thing to become first-time world champions,” says Paradžik, who retired from the national team as a player in 2014 “when I had collected enough injuries in indoor handball.”

Also for Šamarinec, then captain of the women’s national team, the 2008 double triumph stands out.

“I think nobody expected that we would win this tournament, but we were really good. We only believed in ourselves and thought that we could do this,” Šamarinec says. “That year, I became the best pivot of the tournament, it was really emotional. We represented our nation so well and it was the first gold medal, both men and women.”

Šamarinec quit playing indoor in 2008 and fully focused on beach handball. More medals were on their way, most notably in 2011, when Croatia hosted the Beach Handball EURO in Umag.

Again, both the men’s and the women’s team finished on top of the podium.

“We won the gold medal again, but it was completely different,” says Šamarinec when comparing this title to the World Championship gold three years earlier. “We were playing in our country and we were stronger in our minds, because the years before we had shown everyone who the Croatian team was. Those two gold medals were exceptional for me.”

Croatia had become the dominating force in international beach handball. Both Šamarinec and Paradžik were included in All-star Teams that played in an exhibition event at the IOC in Lausanne in 2015, one of the so far unsuccessful attempts to get beach handball included in the Olympic programme.

With the titles and trophies came the expectations from fans and media in Croatia.

“Everything other than the semi-finals was a disaster,” Šamarinec recalls.

Or, as Paradžik puts it: “It is in our genes to expect something like semi-finals, or even winning some medals. During history in the past 20 years, Croatia really had a lot of successes in beach handball. But every competition is a separate story and it is hard to expect every time to be among the best, since more and more countries and teams play beach handball at a really good level.”

Many eyes will be on Croatia again at the Beach Handball EURO 2023 in Nazaré this month.

While the women have not won a medal since that 2011 home triumph and are regarded outsiders for gold, the men are eager to live up to their billing as one of the top contenders. They have not won the European title since 2015 but arrive in Portugal as the reigning world champions and The World Games gold medallists.

With this year’s European Championships scheduled early – in May instead of its usual time slot in July – most teams will have to do without several players who still have obligations in indoor handball, with competitions there in its decisive phase.

Croatia also will “miss two, three important players,” according to Paradžik, but the team spirit will compensate for it – just like in the days when Šamarinec was still playing.

“It is love for the sport of beach handball. These women and men on the national team, they are connected, they are really friends,” Croatia’s former team captain says.

“First we were friends, after that we were teammates. I think we really enjoyed being in others’ company. First of all, it was love, just love. It was no financial or material gain, it was only the love for playing handball together the whole year.”

Croatia – beach handball medals

EHF Beach Handball EURO
- gold: 2007 (w), 2009 (m), 2011 (m+w), 2013 (m), 2015 (m)
- silver: 2004 (w), 2007 (m), 2021 (m)
- bronze: 2006 (w), 2009 (w), 2017 (m)

IHF World Championships
- gold: 2008 (m+w), 2016 (m), 2022 (m)
- silver: 2014 (m), 2018 (m)
- bronze: 2012 (m)

The World Games
- gold: 2022 (m)
- silver: 2017 (m)
- bronze: 2013 (m)

photos © kolektiff images (Jozo Cabraja, Axel Heimken, Uros Hocevar, Sasa Pahic Szabo) and others