Handball-EM: Mikkel Hansen: Between Jesus and Björn Borg

In the second game of the main round, the DHB team will meet Denmark at the European Championship in Croatia (18.15 hrs in the LIVETICKER). The Olympic champion has one of the biggest superstars in handball history in his ranks. SPOX takes a look at Mikkel Hansen.

As a Danish national player, he sometimes needs patience. After a game you are sitting in the bus ready for departure and still can’t get away. Outside, a bunch of fans has formed around Mikkel Hansen, everyone is longing for a photo or autograph.

The 30-year-old has done something very rare in handball. He has become a superstar, at least in his home country everyone knows him, from six-year-old to senior citizen. Now he writes his name on jerseys and posters, smiles in dozens of mobile phone cameras. Colleagues have to wait.

“I used to be happy when my favorite players gave me an autograph,”says the 1.96 meter man. He doesn’t want to disappoint a fan, especially when it comes to children.

“Mikkel is a very open-minded guy,”said Germany’s captain Uwe Gensheimer, who plays Saint-Germain together with Hansen at Paris Saint-Germain, in a conversation with SPOX:”He is always in a good mood and enjoys chatting.”

It is therefore all the more astonishing that the Danes have often been told of a rather dubious image in the past. The world handball player of the years 2011 and 2015 is introverted, almost arrogant.

“I can’t waste any energy walking around and convincing other people that I’m not arrogant. Ultimately, all I care about is that the important people in my life know that I like them – and vice versa,”Hansen once said.

Hansen is already perceived in a completely different way. The man with the long hair and the headband is alternately associated with Jesus, Björn Borg, a hippie or an old school rocker.

It is extremely difficult to classify the 2013 World Cup MVP outside of the pitch simply because it doesn’t give much of a price. Hansen sees himself simply as a handball player and not as a superstar who has to feed the newspapers with headlines.

“I know that he travels a lot in museums in Paris,”says Gensheimer of Hansen’s enthusiasm for art,”I like paintings. It is very exciting to delve into this subject. It gives me new thoughts and new ideas,”the world-class player told me a few months ago.

Apart from that, Hansen is a full professional, who subordinates almost everything to his sport. His daily schedule is based on a strict plan. Training, nutrition, sleep – almost nothing is left to chance.

It’s always been like that with him. He spent most of his childhood in the hall of his hometown Helsingoer. His role model was his father Flemming Hansen, who also made a career in the left back of the Danish national team.

At the beginning of his professional career, people asked him what it was like to grow up in the shadow of such a well-known father. The questioners have long been directed at Hansen Senior:”What is it really like to be overshadowed by your own son?”?

Mikkel Hansen made his breakthrough in the Danish handball talent factory Svendborg, from where he joined FC Barcelona in 2008. Shortly after his goal was scored around the world at the Olympic Games in Beijing against Russia.

The game in the group stage was 24:24 at the end of the season. Hansen fired the last free-throw from a semi-left position directly into the Kreuzeck to win for Denmark.

In his two years in Spain, the 184-times international learnt the probably most important lesson of his career: talent is good, but without even harder and above all more focused work than it already is, it doesn’t lead to the absolute top of the world. Hansen returned to Copenhagen for two years before moving on to Paris in 2012.

Now his sense of achievement pelted down on him. European champion 2012, vice-world champion 2011 and 2013, vice-champion 2014, Olympic champion 2016, four times in five years French champion and so on.

Countless times Hansen was the man for those special moments. He was so often the one who made the difference in every decisive moment – and remained modest despite his enormous self-confidence.

“It is quite clear that such high level performances can only be achieved if you play with the very best handball players, whether in the club or the national team,”said the exceptional player with the number 24.

He does not always make it easy for his fellow players and coaches with his high demands on himself and his environment. Ulrik Wilbek, who oversaw the Danish selection from 2008 to 2014, can sing a song about it.

“He could get really mad if he didn’t like the training. That’s because he has an eerie handball savvy. He knows exactly what needs to be trained at what time,”Wilbek said.

His assistant at the time, Peter Bredsdorff-Larsen, added:”Mikkel is not only a great shooter, he is also a highly intelligent shooter who is extremely good at making the right decisions” Hansen can read a game like no other, and play outstanding passes.

Hansen has been demonstrating all these skills in Paris for five and a half years now. Denmark’s handball icon feels at home in the French capital, which is why he extended his contract until 2022 in the summer.

This may be partly due to the generous payment, as we know. However, one takes it lightly from a character like Hansen that another factor played a decisive role.

“I live in a city where almost no one knows me.”