A maiden semi-final appearance at the 2025 IHF Men’s World Championship kickstarted last year for Portugal, following the return of the women’s national team to the EHF EURO at the end of 2024. Portugal have also reached the final at the last two editions of the M20 EHF EURO, while the women’s side debuted in the W19 EHF EURO semi-finals in 2023 and achieved an historic fifth-place finish at the 2024 Junior World Championship.

There is no doubt that the situation for the elite side of Portuguese handball has been progressing on an upward trajectory, therefore, the Portuguese Handball Federation (FPA) decided to focus mainly on the other end of the scale in their Master Plan project: The children’s game.