Grøndahl: “Our group feels like the Champions League”

Tobias Grøndahl attended his first handball match when he was two weeks old. His mother Tonje was a player in Lommedalen, his father Thomas was the coach of the team, and the little Tobias got handball laid in his cradle when he was born in 2001.

And as the family bonds are very strong, Thomas Grøndahl became the first coach of Tobias, who played and plays for the same clubs as his father: Haslum and now Elverum. Not forget to mention that younger brother Theodor is a handball player, too.

One more thing unites the Grøndahl family: the number on the jersey is always a 15.

“There is no special relationship to this number. My dad was the first to choose 15, my mum did the same, so Theodor and me also have 15”, says Tobias Grøndahl.

But if a club wants to sign him and another player already has this number?

“Maybe it must be written in my contract that I must get this number,” the 22-year-old centre back says with a smile.

Despite his young age, Grøndahl is about to start his fifth international season with Elverum Handball in October. After four seasons in the EHF Champions League, now the team coached by former EHF Champions League winner Börge Lund throws off in the EHF European League.

“But our European League group feels like playing in the Champions League, very challenging,” says Grøndahl, when talking about opponents SG Flensburg-Handewitt, Kadetten Schaffhausen, and HC Lovcen-Cetinje.

“Definitely Flensburg are the favourites in this group, they have a really strong team with great new arrivals. We are really looking forward to facing them again after the duels in the Champions League. We hope to make it to the main round, this is our first goal, then we see what is possible,” says Grøndahl, who suffered from a minor injury early in the season but is back at 100 per cent.

Grøndahl regrets that history at Elverum has always repeated itself over the last years, as the biggest talents used to leave for foreign top clubs. Before this season, goalkeeper Emil Kheri Imsgard joined OTP Bank - Pick Szeged; previously, it were players such as Eric Johansson (now THW Kiel) or Dominik Mathe (now Paris Saint-Germain Handball).

“It is part of the history of this team that we sign big talents and they develop here to make their way to Champions League or European League clubs. In the end, we can be proud that a little club in a little city like Elverum can attract those players. Five constant seasons in the Champions League helped us a lot to reach this reputation. But it would also be brilliant to see an Elverum team now with Dominik, Eric, and Emil.”

This next one at Elverum to make a career step abroad could well be Peter Lukasz. The 21-year-old back player arrived from Telekom Veszprém HC and was one of the main players to steer Hungary to their first final at the Junior World Championship in 46 years.

“He can follow the footsteps of our big names, but besides him, some other new arrivals had a great start here. I am sure we can surprise many teams this season with our new team,” says Grøndahl. “We want to play smart and with high speed, a little bit the way Flensburg play.”

His best memories on the international stage were the record-breaking matches in the EHF Champions League against Kiel, PSG and Flensburg in the Olympic Håkons Hall in Lillehammer, when up to 12,000 fans were in the arena: “When you enter the court in this atmosphere, it gives you goosebumps.”

The next match in Håkons Hall is scheduled for Saturday (5 October) – the top duel in the Norwegian league against rivals Kolstad Handball, who ended Elverum’s series of domestic championships last season by winning the best-of-five final series 3-1.

Personally, Grøndahl had his greatest moments so far in the Champions League 2021/22 season. For a long time, he was top scorer of the competition before ending on 81 goals, ahead of players such as Mikkel Hansen.

“It was unbelievable for me to be ahead of Dika Mem and others. My club used these stats quite often on social media. I am sure our opponents did not know me at that time and focussed their defence on players such as Dominik Mathe or Eric Johansson, so I had a lot of space to score. A great time,” says Grøndahl, who has scored 178 goals in four EHF Champions League seasons.

His shooting power quickly helped him become a Norwegian senior national team player: he had his debut in 2021 and played the 2023 World Championship as his first major tournament. “Of course, I hope to be in the squad for the EHF EURO 2024; at the moment, all indicators look good.”

Tobias Grøndahl has received a lot of help from Elverum coach Börge Lund: “He was a playmaker like me, so I learnt a lot from him. We often talk about handball and how our attack should work, I really appreciate those discussions.”

photos courtesy of Elverum Handball