Junior World Championship: Croatia Handball Star Ivan Martinović Named MVP

The Under-21 Croatia handball team may have lost in the final of the Junior World Handball Championship, but the young squad brought a historical result to Croatia – the first World Championship medal in this age category.

On Sunday, Croatia lost to France in the final 28:23, though they did boast one victory France could not – the MVP of the competition, announced HVS on July 28, 2019.

Namely, Ivan Martinović was declared the best player of the Junior World Championship in Spain, and Fran Mileta made the tournament’s all-star team!

Presenting the 2019 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship All-star Team ???#Spain2019 #handtastic pic.twitter.com/CUSQOqxbWr

— IHF (@ihf_info) July 28, 2019

“Congratulations to France on a deserved victory. They were better. They had some problems in the group stage, but they got better as the tournament went on, as usual. Eventually, they brought in Elohim Prandi, who is the new player for the best team in the world, PSG. It only confirms how much they wanted this gold.

Congratulations to our boys, of course. They were great. There were some tears in the dressing room as they felt they could have done a little better. If it were not for Ivan Martinović, Filip Vistorop or Josip Šarac and the others, we would not have been in the final.

Thank you once again to the whole staff that has worked so intensely for these 40 days to come to this end. This is trainer Dinko Đanković, goalkeeper coach Marko Markiš, who scouted our opponents from Germany and assisted the goalkeepers. And Danijel Brajković, Željko Kercel, and Zdravko Mirilović.

We can be proud because we have the MVP of the World Championship, Ivan Martinović, and right-winger Fran Mileta who made the all-star team of the championship, and he was born in 2000! Our ultimate goal is that from this generation, 5 or 6 of them will play for the A-team.

Ivan Martinović, the tournament’s MVP,  also had a few things to say: 

“I’m so happy with how we played. Many of us were eliminated after the sixth place last year in Slovenia at the Euros. But we knew we were worth it. At every moment, in each game, we gave our best. We used our strengths to their final limits and maybe that even partially decided the final. As for the MVP, I would turn it in for a gold medal without even thinking. In any case, thanks to the teammates who helped me with this feat.”

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

 

Subscribe to our newsletter

the fields marked with * are required

Email: *
First name:
Last name:
Gender:	Male Female
Country:
Birthday:	[DD] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 [MM] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [YYYY] 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Please don't insert text in the box below!