Oral transcription

Handball is a team sport where two teams of seven players each pass and bounce a ball trying to throw it in the goal of the opposing team.
The game has a goal similar to but smaller than the one in football, though as the name implies, the basic method of handling the ball involves the players' hands rather than their feet.
Team handball has origins reaching as far as antiquity: urania in ancient-Greece, harpaston in ancient Rome, fangballspiel in medieval Germany, etc
The team handball game as we know it today was formed by the end of the19th century in northern Europe, primarily Denemark, Germany, Norway and Sweden.
As of February 2007, the IHF lists 159 member federations which represent approximately 1,130,000 teams and a total of 31 million players, trainers
Standard match duration consists of two periods of 30 minutes each during which each team may call one time-out. The game is quite fast and includes body contact as the defenders try to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. Only frontal contact by the defenders is allowed; when a defender stops an attacker with his or her arms instead of his or her torso, the play is stopped and restarted from the spot of the infraction or on the nine meter line, with the attacking team in possession.
The usual formations of the defense are the so-called 6-0, when all the defense players are within the 6 meter and 9 meter lines; the 5-1 and3-3 formations with man marking all over their defensive area. This formation is used by teams outside Eastern Europe only when behind with a few goals with a few minutes left, in the attempt to steal the ball faster.
Goals are much more common in handball than in most other sports; usually, both teams score at least 40 goals, and it is not uncommon to have a match end (say) 33-31.
In our country we have one of the most important handball team in the history. These team is Barça. Barça has an impressive onours.
But the lasts years the most important teams are Ciudad Real and Kiel.