BIOGRAPHY
Only a small group of people have won the EHF Champions League as both player and coach - but Filip Jicha can count himself among those people, and he managed to achieve that feat before the age of 40.
The Czech player spent the early years of his career at home, playing for Slavia Plzeň and Dukla Praha before spending a formative few months at Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia and then signing for Swiss side St. Otmar St. Gallen.
But the years he spent in Germany would mark him most. Jicha joined TBV Lemgo in 2005 and at the end of that season became the first Czech player in almost quarter of a century to lift a European trophy, when Lemgo won the EHF Cup.
THW Kiel was the next team to spot Jicha, and it would be Kiel where he spent the longest time as a player. During the eight years with the Zebras, Jicha would win the EHF Champions League twice - in 2010 and 2012, alongside many other legendary players who made an impact in the early 2010s. He also captained the side.
Jicha played 158 games for Czechia alongside his club career, and with 877 goals scored, is second only to Jan Filip in the national ranking.
Jicha’s final two years playing were at FC Barcelona, an experience he said was essential to his eventual decision to coach. However, those two years were plagued by a knee injury which forced Jicha off the court.
Following a year’s break the Czech returned to handball and to Kiel, where he spent a year as assistant to Alfred Gislason before taking on the top job in 2019. In the Covid-hit 2019/20 season, when the EHF FINAL4 took place at Christmas, Jicha’s Kiel beat Barça to once again raise the Champions League trophy.
Since then, Jicha has added a further EHF FINAL4 appearance - in 2021/22 - and Kiel have won the Bundesliga three times. There seems no doubt he will continue making his mark as a coach for years to come.
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