Summer Handball Medical Bulletin: Star Returns and the EHF's New Prevention Push

The 2025-26 European handball season has been a grueling marathon, testing the physical limits of the sport's brightest stars. With a calendar packed with domestic leagues, the Machineseeker EHF Champions League, and the EHF EURO 2026, the physical toll on players has never been higher. Yet, as the season concludes, the narrative is shifting from the despair of career-altering injuries to stories of remarkable resilience and systemic reform.[5][6]

At the forefront of this resilience is Paris Saint-Germain's towering line player, Kamil Syprzak. The Polish international, who was the Champions League's top scorer in 2024, found himself severely hampered by injuries throughout the current campaign, forcing him to undergo extensive rehabilitation while his team fought for European dominance.[1]

Despite being limited to just nine appearances out of PSG's 16 Champions League matches, Syprzak's impact remained undeniable. He found the back of the net 70 times—converting an astonishing 70 of his 87 attempts—averaging nearly eight goals per game. His clinical finishing not only kept PSG competitive but also earned him a prestigious nomination for the 2026 EHF Excellence Awards.[1]

Syprzak's teammate, Elohim Prandi, also battled through the physical grind, including a late-season injury scare during the Champions League play-offs against Veszprém. Prandi pushed through the pain to deliver a historic season, scoring 120 goals and breaking the record for the highest-scoring French player in a single Champions League campaign.[1][5]

While club stars navigated their recoveries, the international stage saw its own share of high-profile medical bulletins. The French national team suffered a devastating blow just days before the EHF EURO 2026 when reigning tournament MVP Nedim Remili was unexpectedly ruled out.[2][3]

During his rehabilitation for a left thigh injury, Remili experienced acute pain in his calf, requiring urgent medical examinations that confirmed a lesion. The 30-year-old Veszprém right-back was forced to withdraw, leaving head coach Guillaume Gille to rapidly reorganize his 18-man squad and call up Aymeric Zaepfel as a replacement.[3][4]

Remili was not the only superstar sidelined during the winter championship. Spain was forced to compete without their talismanic goalkeeper Gonzalo Perez de Vargas due to an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, while Norway lost Harald Reinkind to a severe foot injury.[6]

These high-profile absences have sparked a broader conversation about player welfare and the sheer volume of high-intensity minutes required of modern handball athletes. In response, the European Handball Federation (EHF) has shifted its focus from reactive treatment to proactive, systemic prevention.[5]

Recognizing that overuse injuries—such as tendinitis and chronic muscle strains—are often the result of inadequate recovery windows, a coalition of EHF experts recently launched the sport's first comprehensive Injury Prevention Manual.[5]

Developed by leading sports medicine professionals, including Jesper Bencke from Copenhagen University Hospital and Serbian strength coach Tanja Sarenac, the manual provides coaches with evidence-based protocols to protect their rosters from the specific biomechanical stresses of handball.[5]

Rather than treating injury prevention as a separate, tedious chore, the EHF's blueprint integrates neuromuscular control, balance training, and load management directly into daily warm-ups and micro-cycles. The goal is to make players faster and more resilient without them even realizing they are performing injury-prevention work.[5]

To ensure these elite standards reach the grassroots level, the EHF has integrated the manual's exercises into widely used digital coaching apps. As players like Syprzak and Remili demonstrate the grueling road back to peak performance, the sport's governing bodies are finally equipping coaches with the tools to keep their stars on the court, ensuring that the future of handball is defined by longevity rather than attrition.[5]