Is the era of seven-against-six ending? Perhaps the decision by the International Handball Federation (IHF) ahead of the U17 World Championship in October to ban seven-against-six gives an indication of the direction handball is moving.
It was ahead of the U17 World Championship (men) in October that IHF made the decision to ban seven-against-six. It is not uncommon for IHF to test rule variations at youth championships, and this decision can certainly be considered an interesting one – especially given the hot potato that seven-against-six has been ever since its introduction.
In the competition rules for the World Championship it states on the IHF’s website (page 72 in the rules):
“Each team must have a goalkeeper on the court at all times, i.e. teams may not substitute their goalkeeper for an additional court player. However, court players may act as goalkeepers in accordance with Rules 4:7-8 of the Rules of the Game. The goalkeeper may only be replaced before a 7-metre throw or during a time-out.”
Per Johansson shares his opinion
GoHandball has been in contact with Győris head coach, Per Johansson, who supports the decision IHF made ahead of the U17 World Championship.
– It is absolutely right. Why should we teach youths to play seven-against-six? It becomes their senior coach’s job later in life to teach them that. There are so many other moments we should educate our players in – seven-against-six should always be lowest priority in the youth years, says Johansson.
What do you think about seven-against-six at senior level?
– Hopefully the defensive development against seven-against-six will improve, which hopefully leads to seven-against-six only being used as a last resort to come back in a match, or to slow down the tempo in periods if one thinks one has problems with it.
– But coaches who play seven-against-six for 50-60 minutes have in some way given up on contributing to players’ education and development. Then I’m not in favour of prohibition – if it’s allowed then of course there are those who want to use it. But I also hope that we take six-against-seven defence-play to heights that make it harder to play seven-against-six attack. But then the young coaches also need to focus on that. In that case there could be created balance. But most six-against-seven today are passive and partly or entirely lack any methodology to defend against seven-against-six.
Why do you think IHF tested this now?
– Hopefully because they see that the rule they once decided on has not panned out as well as they once thought it would, says Per Johansson.
GoHandball has reached out to IHF for a comment.