Basel: The International Handball Federation has announced the schedule of matches for the 28th World Men's Championship, to be hosted by Poland and Sweden from January 11 to 29, 2023.
The Qatar Handball team, which was placed in Group E along with Germany, Serbia, and Algeria, will start its journey in the tournament by meeting Germany on January 13, and then Algeria two days later (January 15) before concluding against Serbia on January 17.
The 32 teams participating in the tournament were divided into eight groups.
In Group A are Spain, Montenegro, Chile, and Iran, while Group B has France, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and Slovenia. Group C (Sweden, Brazil, Cape Verde, Uruguay), and Group D (Iceland, Portugal, Hungary, and South Korea). Group E (Germany, Qatar, Serbia and Algeria), Group F (Norway, North Macedonia, Argentina, and the Netherlands), Group G (Egypt, Croatia, Morocco, and the United States), and Group H (Denmark, Belgium, Bahrain, and Tunisia).
The top three teams from each group will qualify for the second round (the main round), which will include 24 teams, which will be divided into four groups, each of which includes six teams competing among themselves in a league system of one round, with the first and second placed teams qualifying in Each group advances to the quarter-finals, the start of the playoffs in the tournament.
The Qatari handball team qualified for the 2023 World Championship after topping the first group in the main round of the 2022 Asian Men's Handball Championship, which was held in Saudi Arabia last January, where they were crowned Asian Champions for the fifth time in a row after beating Bahrain 29-24 in the final.
The 2023 World Championship will be the ninth for the Qatari team, after Portugal in 2003, Tunisia 2005, Germany 2007, Spain 2013, Qatar 2015, France 2017, Germany, Denmark 2019, and Egypt 2021, while the second place in the Qatar 2015 edition was their best result in the history of their participation.
