Veselin Vujovic replaces Spaniard Valero Rivera as Al Annabi’s coach and has plenty of experience having managed Qatari side Al Sadd previously.
Qatar National Handball team’s new head coach Veselin Vujovic said he is “eager” to take the team to new heights after being unveiled as Al Annabi’s new man in charge.
Vujovic was presented on Thursday at the Handball Association’s Headquarters in Doha and spoke at a press conference on Saturday.
The Montenegrin reached an agreement with the Qatar Handball Association’s President Ahmed Al Shaabi last week in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.
“The task will not be easy, but we will work to equip the handball team in the best way possible for big tournaments,” he said.
Expectations on the 63-year-old will be to leverage his success as a player and his experience of coaching in the region to elevate Qatar to the World Stage, especially as the team seeks to perform well in the World Championship next year.
Qatar’s handball team won the Asian Championship for the sixth consecutive time earlier this year in January and has lately been established as the team to beat in the continent.
That success, however, has not translated on the global stage, as the team fell short of the 2024 Olympic games after a tightly contested loss against Bahrain in October 2023.
Preparations for the 2025 World Championship will include scouting new players from Qatar’s domestic league to “inject new blood” into the team, he added.
Qatar is drawn alongside France, Australia, and Kuwait in the World Championship set to be held from January 14 to February 5 next year in Croatia, Denmark, and Norway.
The team’s best result came in the form of a silver medal when Qatar hosted the World Handball Championship in 2015.
Vujovic replaces Spaniard Valero Rivera, who had announced that he would be leaving in 2024 after more than 11 years as Qatar’s head coach.
Before joining Croatian handball club RK Nexe Nasice earlier this year, Vujovic was in charge of Iran’s Sepahan club following a stint at Iran’s national side between 2022 and 2023.
Slovenia’s national side won a bronze medal under Vujovic in 2017, his highest accolade as a national team coach, but has plenty of experience at the club level.
He guided Spanish side Ciudad Real to four trophies in his three years at the club as well as had successes with Macedonia’s Vardar and Croatia’s RK Zagreb later on.
Qatari side Al Sadd won the First Division title and the Crown Prince Cup under Vujovic’s tutelage in 2010.
As a player, he won gold at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the World Championship two years later in Switzerland, also enjoying European Championship-winning spells at RK Metaloplastika and Barcelona’s handball team.
