German Klaus Feldmann and Frantisek Taborsky from the Czech Republic are IHF lecturers and they’re the IHF analysts at the Women’s Junior World Championship in Korea. One day before the final they allowed the IHF website to have a view on their analyses.
Feldmann and Taborsky combine several tasks: At first they support the referee supervisors in each venue in selecting, producing and providing material for the daily referee’s meetings. They analyze typical situations and set a focus for the meetings.  Aside they make the proposals for the All-Star Team of this WCH in Korea. But the biggest part of their work is to research developments in the teams. “We have seen several teams at four big tournaments, like World and European Youth and Junior Championship – and we analyze the development of those teams to look what has changed from the technical and tactical point of view,” Feldmann explains. But they don’t work for the teams – to be completely independent as IHF officials – but for the public, for coaches and referees by publishing certain specific situations as video clips or picture series on the IHF website right after the matches.

http://www.ihf.info/IHFCompetitions/WorldChampionships/WomenJuniorworldchampionships/WomensJuniorWorldChampionshipinKorea2010/VideoAnalyses/tabid/5624/Default.aspx

http://www.ihf.info/IHFCompetitions/WorldChampionships/WomenJuniorworldchampionships/WomensJuniorWorldChampionshipinKorea2010/TechnicalCorner/tabid/5603/Default.aspx

Feldmann and Taborsky are working on a big, general analysis of the World Championship which will be published also on www.ihf.info. For Taborsky one development is absolutely obvious: the speed. “Most of the teams play very fast in their attacks – just have a look on the number of goals that had been scored in Korea. But due to this higher speed the number of technical mistakes rose, too.”  Feldmann explains another general topic of their analysis: “More and more teams from non-European countries use good sources of information about the match play of their opponents. The grade of information has become very high – but this contains a certain problem: There are barely exotic styles of match play; most of the teams have the same style of playing which means a complete unification of the systems unfortunately. But this is a typical development of all women’s and men’s major tournaments. But I still hope for attractiveness by more exotic developments.”
 For Taborsky another fact is important – the number of participants: “For the first time we have a Juniors WCH with 24 teams. The gaps of the performing level are very high when comparing top nations and debutants. But maybe this big number of participants helps to develop handball in those countries, because when they meet top teams they learn really a lot.” And in between the teams the level of the players differs, as Feldmann has analyzed: “The difference is high. In some teams the first six players have a real high level, but the rest on the bench can’t keep up with them. So when you play a tournament with ten matches in 14 days you need a wide range of nearly equal players to have success, otherwise you lack too much power.” Taborsky adds: “For this reason Russia and Norway are in the final, because they haven’t only individual top class players, but the best alternatives. For example Russia changed twelve players in the highly important Main Round match against Hungary and didn’t lose any quality – in contrast: the players had enough power in the final stage of the match.” For Taborsky, Montenegro and also Korea are examples for the problem that some teams have to play with a less number of players not to lose their quality.

Another focus of the analyst’s work is the defense structure of the teams.  “In former times the Asian teams had a very offensive and fast defense. By looking at Korea or China today their systems have partially changed to a defensive 6:0 system,“ Feldmann says. Another example of a new system is Spain with the tall middle block defenders and two half backs who try to force the opponent back court players to the middle – “the exact opposite of a 3:2:1 system,” as Feldmann explains. But the teams have developed, as the analysts found out: “Nearly all teams now have the possibility to change their defense systems and options; they don’t have a steady system, “Taborsky says.