Only about 50 thousand female handball players are living in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, the Dutch national team won both silver medals at the last World and European Championship in 2015 and 2016. Since the beginning of 2016 Helle Thomsen is the new head coach of the team. The Dane is very happy about the growing popularity around female handball in the Netherlands. “The girls are getting more and more popular. Their popularity literally exploded within a few years. But the Dutch handball league isn’t that professional yet. That’s why many players move to Germany. In Germany they don’t play only in the first league, but also in second and third. I wish that they would stay longer in the Netherlands so the Dutch league can grow and fortify itself”, explains Thomsen. The best Dutch national players play in European elite clubs like Győri Audi ETO KC or Team Esbjerg and can mess with the very best. Thomsen hasn’t many days left with her team. “I think Germany has about twice as much time for preparation than we do. We don’t have much time left before the World Championship starts. But we will use the time intensively for preparation because our group is very tough”, she says. She counts Germany and Serbia to the favourite teams in group D. “It’s going to be very important to finish the preliminary round on the first or second place because our opponent in the round of sixteen will be a nation from group C which is also very strong” explains Thomsen. “We should not underestimate our first opponent from Korea. We don’t have much video footage to prepare for this match. They also play very different from European nations”, tells 46 years old Thomsen.
Besides coaching the Dutch national team, she is also head coach of the Rumanian Champions League participant CSM Bucaresti. She will meet many of her own players at the World Championship. Not only Romanian players play in Bucharest, but also players from Sweden, France, Norway, Denmark and Croatia. Especially the games against her home nation are very tough for Thomsen. “The 60 minutes of playing handball is not the problem. The time after the game is the hardest. I would like to avoid these games against my players or my home country, but it’s mostly impossible”, she explains and adds smilingly: “Afterwards I only want to embrace everyone”.
Maybe this is what makes Helle Thomsen so special. She doesn’t want to change for anyone. “I am the way I am and I don’t want to copy anyone. Sometimes I can be very hard or demanding but hopefully the players always know that I only want the best for them. Fortunately, up to now every team that I coached fits me”, she sums up her luck. Coach Thomsen, who is from Frederikshavn, already won the Danish Championship twice and the bronze medal at the European Championship 2014 with Sweden. Now she wants to get the Netherlands to the top of the handball world. She just signed a contract until 2018. “I could have signed a longer contract but I said we have to evaluate after two years. If they are happy with me I extend it and when not it’s also okay. There shouldn’t be any bad blood.”
It is also remarkable that no national player earns a penny for her engagement in the national team: “It is an honour to play for their nation and they don’t take it for granted.” Maybe this is part of the answer to the question why the Dutch national team fight hard in every single match. This is what they’re going to do during the World Championship: fighting for reaching the final again, this time in Hamburg.”
