Straight Handball Talk By Bini Mustafa and New York City Team Handball Club

Staffan Olsson has had a truly remarkable handball career both as a player and as a coach. He was part of the Swedish national team nicknamed the Bengan Boys—one of the finest national teams in the history of the sport—and has won medals in all major international handball competitions.

In this episode of Straight Handball Talk, Staffan Olsson and Bini Mustafa discuss Staffan’s historic career as well as his recent involvement with coaches and youth program development in American handball, which led the two to meet at Michael Lipov Invitational tournament in Chicago in 2019.

Jérôme Fernandez has won many handball honors and holds the record for most goals scored for the French National handball team.

In this episode of Straight Handball Talk, Jérôme Fernandez and Bini Mustafa revisit their shared experiences, from NYC to the south of France.

Jérôme also shares his recollection of the 2009 IHF World Championship finals in Zagreb, where he, as the team captain led France to victory while overcoming challenging times in his personal life.

Ivan Ignjatovic is the team captain of the New York City Team Handball Club. He has won seven US championships, one Canadian championship, eleven consecutive Northeast League titles, as well as MVG titles for almost all tournaments that he has attended.

In this episode of Straight Handball Talk, Ivan and Bini reflect on what makes The World’s Handball Club who they are while also sharing a few memories from their long-shared handball experiences that have turned into an irreplaceable brotherhood.

Lewis Howes is an entrepreneur, influencer, and business coach. His podcast, The School of Greatness, is one of the top 100 iTunes podcasts with over 250 million downloads, and his impressive career has seen him on Ellen, The Today Show, ESPN, and many more.

In this episode of Straight Handball Talk, Lewis Howes and Bini Mustafa talk about Lewis’ unusual start to handball in 2011, where he showed up for practice in Brooklyn, stating that he had moved to New York to learn to play handball. As it turned out, he was not joking, and Lewis went on to kickstart his handball career at age 29, making his dream of representing Team USA in international competition, and also winning some major handball events with The World’s Handball Club.

Tom O'Brannagáin is the voice of handball in all English-speaking countries, commentating for the EHF on EHFTV.com. He has also played and coached handball at an international level.

In this episode of Straight Handball Talk, Tom and Bini Mustafa talk about how Tom got into handball and how, though they have yet to meet in person, the sport of handball connects them.

Goran Šprem played for the Croatian national team for ten years. As part of Croatia’s golden handball generation, he has won multiple Olympic and World Championship medals.

In this episode of Straight Handball Talk, Goran reflects on some critical moments in his career and shares his take on the recent successes of a new generation in the Croatian national team.