BIOGRAPHY
Nikolaj Jacobsen is perhaps best known to modern handball fans as the coach who has guided Denmark to three consecutive world titles plus Olympic and EHF EURO medals.
But before he became a coach, Jacobsen had a successful playing career in his native Denmark and Germany. As a child he played both handball and football, but at the age of 18 made his senior professional debut in handball for GOG. He shone at GOG, helping the team to win two consecutive league titles and finishing the 1997 season as top scorer of the domestic league.
He spent one year at TSV Bayer Dormagen in Germany before joining THW Kiel in 1998, and formed a key part of the team which won the Bundesliga in 1999 and 2000 as well as the German Cup.
Jacobsen was also playing for Denmark in this period and was named Danish Handball Player of the Year twice, in 1993 and 1999. However, a knee injury kept him out of the squad which won EHF EURO bronze in 2002 and ultimately forced his departure back to Denmark in 2004, although not before he had helped Kiel to two EHF Cup titles in 2002 and 2004.
Back in Denmark, Jacobsen became a player-coach for Viborg and then Bjerringbro-Silkeborg, while gradually decreasing the amount of time he spent playing. His first job as a full-time head coach was at Aalborg Håndbold in 2012, before he moved to Rhein-Neckar Löwen to replace Guðmundur Guðmundsson in 2014. Guðmundsson was taking over the Danish national team and, in fact, Jacobsen would follow him again in 2017 to become the national head coach, the job he still holds today.
