The Uruguayan Men’s Handball Team (Senior) finalizes its preparation for the 2021 IHF World Cup in Egypt where it will debut against the powerful Germany on January 15.
In addition to the difficulties inherent to a sport that in Uruguay is absolutely amateur, with very few players with experience in professional leagues (only 4 players from the current squad play today in Spain), are added the inconveniences that arise from the pandemic that has brought COVID19 .
Thus, the lack of infrastructure and material resources that Uruguayan Handball has always had, other adversities have been added as a consequence of the pandemic: the sanitary restrictions established by the Ministry of Public Health and the National Sports Secretariat and the impossibility from training in closed gym´s and competing with other teams for their set-up.
Practicing on the open court of the German School of Montevideo, with a cement floor and exposed to the risk of injuries and inclement weather, and performing the bodybuilding exercises in smal batches, in open-air facilities, the preparation of the Selected is far from being the ideal one for the demands of a World Cup.
The costs and difficulties of having the entire squad full-time –since most of them have work commitments, unrelated to sport, which they must maintain– have also prevented the organization of tours that allow more intense preparation.
But as they say in Uruguay “bad weather, good face” and the current difficulties, the selected team has faced with high commitment and great motivation and encouragement due to the reality of the next World Cup debut.
Indeed, Egypt 2021 will be the first participation of a Uruguayan National Representative Team in a World Cup of the category.
Sacrifice and more sacrifice, putting the soul and the characteristic “garra charrúa”, generate expectations of a good role and of overcoming in this historical fact for Uruguayan handball
Starting next January 8, the entire delegation will focus on the 10 de Julio Stadium in the city of Florida and will enter a “health bubble” that will maintain until its departure to Cairo, in order to strictly comply with the requirements imposed by the IHF,
The FUH (Uruguayan Handball Federation) has done everything in its power to obtain support – both public and private – and give them, in the context of the health emergency in which the country finds itself, the most dignified conditions within their reach to have a preparation according to the event
The Celestial Handball family awaits the debut of its athletes with great enthusiasm and the hope of beginning to write a new page in the promotion of this sport with very Uruguayan roots.
Photo: press FUH
