Live blog: Excitement builds for Winamax EHF Finals 2026

• coverage of the Winamax EHF Finals 2026 at Barclays Arena in Hamburg
• Friday is the day of the final preparations for the four teams — Montpellier Handball, THW Kiel, MT Melsungen, and SG Flensburg-Handewitt
• read the preview for Saturday's semi-finals — Montpellier vs Kiel and Melsungen vs Flensburg
• find out where to watch the Winamax EHF Finals 2026, or grab the last available tickets and come to Hamburg
• Eric Willemsen reporting from Hamburg; photos © kolektiff

Friday 29 May 2026

16:26

Alongside Kiel, Melsungen were one of the two unbeaten teams in the EHF European League for some time this season until they started losing a few times in the main round. They then battled their way past Fredericia Håndboldklub and FC Porto in the knockout phase to earn another trip to Hamburg, a year after their EHF Finals debut.

Reaching the semi-finals is the best result in the club's European history, and the team around head coach Roberto Parrondo is eager to go a step further this time. (Again against Flensburg, coached by a former teammate of Parrondo's.) In their domestic league, Melsungen have won five of their seven most recent matches, which included a 30:29 home win over Kiel in late March. However, they lost both Bundesliga duels with their upcoming opponents, Flensburg.

An issue might be the lack of a true goal-getter in the squad: the top scorers for Montpellier (Jack Thurin, 53 goals) and Kiel (Imre Bence, 53 goals) netted more than 50 times; the top scorers for Flensburg (Marko Grgić, 77 goals; Johannes Golla, 73 goals) even more than 70 times. But Melsungen have no player who scored more than 38 times (Florian Drosten).

16:07

Before we continue with a closer look at the remaining two teams: who do you think will pick up the MVP award on Sunday evening? The past winners:

• 2021: Jannick Green — SC Magdeburg
• 2022: Sergey Hernández — SL Benfica
• 2023: Fabian Wiede — Füchse Berlin
• 2024: Emil Jakobsen — SG Flensburg-Handewitt
• 2025: Kevin Møller — SG Flensburg-Handewitt
• 2026: ???

This is certainly harder to predict than the top scorers title for the EHF European League Men 2025/26 season, as Axel Månsson leads with 98, although his IFK Kristianstad went out in the play-offs. Next in line is Flensburg's Marko Grgić. But, currently at 77, he will need 22 goals in this weekend's two matches to overtake Månsson...

15:55

Four months before he left Barcelona for Kiel last year, Gonzalo Pérez de Vargas tore his ACL. But since last November, the Spanish ace has formed one of the best goalkeeper duos in handball with Andreas Wolff. Both were key in Kiel’s qualification for the Winamax EHF Finals 2026, each saving a penalty in the quarter-final shootout against Nexe.

Read this Kiel feature from EHF journalist Björn Pazen:

15:31

Four-time EHF Champions League winners Kiel are in their second EHF European League season — and they enter their second EHF Finals. Last year, they were edged out by a Montpellier buzzer-beater in the semi-finals, can they go all the way this time?

Early signs are good, as Kiel have by far the best track record this season of all four teams in Hamburg, winning 11 of their 12 matches — only a quarter-final away defeat at RK Nexe — in a series that included two victories over their upcoming opponents from France. Kiel won group B in the group matches and group I in the main round, skipped the play-offs and defeated Nexe to book their ticket to the Winamax EHF Finals 2026.

On home ground, though, Kiel have been struggling. They won only three of the their last 10 Bundesliga matches and dropped to fifth in the standings, lost the final of the Supercup, and went out in the quarter-finals of the DHB Cup. This weekend, Kiel feel they already play the final on Saturday, as Rune Dahmke put it in the media call.

15:08

Montpellier left back Kylian Prat was only seven years old when his dad, Teddy, played — and lost — the Cup Winners’ Cup final with Tremblay en France against VfL Gummersbach. So, Kylian gets the chance to bring home a European trophy to the Pratt family which his father had already been so close to.

Read this Montpellier feature from EHF journalist Björn Pazen:

14:53

Montpellier are ready for their third EHF Finals appearance — and remarkably, they have only met German opponents: in 2023 Füchse Berlin and Frisch Auf Göppingen; in 2025 Kiel and Flensburg; and this year, they start against Kiel again and will next meet either Melsungen or Flensburg.

Montpellier won nine of their 14 matches this EHF European League season, finished second in group B of the group matches and third in group I of the main round before beating Elverum Håndball and HC Vardar 1961 in the knock-out stage to qualify for the Winamax EHF Finals 2026.

Domestically, they are probably having the best season of all contenders in Hamburg. Montpellier won the French Super Cup (against Paris Saint-Germain Handball, last August) and the cup (against HBC Nantes, as recent as last weekend), but managed to win only three of their last seven Starligue games since the beginning of April.

Can they win their third European trophy this weekend, and first since that glorious EHF Champions League triumph eight years ago? It would round off an impressive circle for Diego Simonet, the Argentine star who was the MVP of the EHF FINAL4 back in 2018 but will end his active career after this season.

14:33

With the Winamax EHF Finals 2026 taking place in Hamburg, the three German teams decided to hold their media calls already on Thursday. The only non-German team, Montpellier, arrived in Hamburg late yesterday and answered the journalists' questions this morning. You will find some of the most interesting quotes here on the live blog this afternoon when we have a closer look at each of the four participants.

For now, if you consider coming to Barclays Arena this weekend in person, do so! There are still a few tickets available for both playing days! 

14:18

What is new this year, though, are the somewhat unusual throw-off times for the semi-finals on Saturday: Montpellier and Kiel open the Winamax EHF Finals 2026 already at 12:30 CEST, before Melsungen and Flensburg play the second semi-final at 15:30 CEST. The reason for the early starts is that organisers want to avoid a time collision with the UEFA Champions League final, which starts at 18:00 CEST. By the way, we will be back at the more usual playing times of 15:00 and 18:00 CEST for Sunday's medal matches.

The early throw-off changes nothing to the facts and figures in the semi-final preview written by EHF journalist Björn Pazen:

14:11

If you have a kind of déjà vu feeling, that's understandable. It's not only the third year running that we are in Hamburg for the final tournament of the EHF European League Men. Also, we have exactly the same four teams participating. And even more so, the draw three weeks ago resulted in the exact same semi-final pairings: Montpellier vs Kiel and Melsungen vs Flensburg.

Last year, Flensburg ended up retaining their title from 2024, can they now make it a three-peat?

Same teams. Same arena. Different story 👊😤 #ehfel #ehffinals #elm #handball pic.twitter.com/3bJSiQqkx2

— EHF European League (@ehfel_official) May 29, 2026

14:00

Moin! Good afternoon from Hamburg! We are only one day away from the Winamax EHF Finals 2026, so let me take you through Friday's final preparations in the build-up to this season-ending event of the EHF European League Men 2025/26.

One of the following four teams will lift the trophy on Sunday evening:

• Montpellier Handball
• THW Kiel
• MT Melsungen
• SG Flensburg-Handewitt

and here is how you can watch it all unfold over two thrilling days of handball at Barclays Arena: