Lino Cervar

”I am proud to be the coach of the team that won World Championship and Olympic gold medals. Nevertheless, I'm still hungry for more. Team Croatia is ambitious and we will try and make sure that we stay at the top of European handball. We are aiming not only for the best results, but we also want to entertain all the people who will watch our matches in Austria during Euro 2010!!”

In the world of coaching, Lino Cervar is known as a force to be reckoned with. Since Croatia´s first match against Japan, Cervar has been with the Team Croatia either on the periphery or in the thick of things. After his success against CZE in the 2003 World Championship qualifiers, Cervar took on the responsibility of head coach and led the team to victory. This was followed by another piece of gold after an amazing Olympic performance. In 2009, Cervar tasted bittersweet defeat, taking silver on home soil at the World Championship, winning all matches except the final.

Though he has spent the majority of his career working in Italy as the head of the men´s national teams in all age categories and as the head coach of the men´s senior team, leading them to their first world and European Championship participation, just an example of how Cervar has made handball history time and again.

Cervar has also had an illustrious career coaching club handball taking teams from lower league division handball to the premier leagues. His overwhelming awareness of the sport is far reaching, and the published author continues to share his knowledge not only on the EHF lecture circuit but also in universities around Europe.