Arnoldsen’s game: “Those moments really teach you new things that you had not thought about”

Thomas Arnoldsen finished his third season in the EHF Champions League one goal shy of the 100 mark. Now 24, the Danish centre back enters his fourth year in the top flight having already experienced two Champions League finals and as one of the extremely rare triplicate national team title holders to have written their name onto that handball history page — a current Olympic, world and European champion.

“We have won everything and it's so easy to just say, OK, then we can relax a little bit. But I know Nikolaj [Jacobsen] and all the players, we just want to be better every time. Every championship, we want to play better and better handball, so we will not relax and we will try to win all three trophies at the same time again,” says Arnoldsen.

“But we also know it would be very hard because all the other teams, they’re saying if they want to be number one, they need to beat Denmark. And if we want to still be the number one, we need to be better every time, because the other, they’re also doing extra be number one. So, I just think that when we're going to a championship, we're thinking about playing better handball, and I also think that we will do that in the next championship.”

“In the end of the season, we missed maybe the last five per cent”

Arnoldsen made his national team debut in 2023, then his first major tournament appearance at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. It was also in 2023 that he took his first steps on the EHF Champions League court, after he transferred from Skanderborg-Aarhus — where he had scored 60 goals in the EHF European League 2022/23, on his European cup debut — to join Aalborg.

Aalborg made it all the way to the EHF Champions League trophy game in 2023/24, and returned to the EHF FINAL4 in 2026. After suffering defeat at the hands of Barça in an overtime semi-final, Arnoldsen says Aalborg looked to 2026/27 determined to perfect the details they felt they were missing at the end of last season.

“After the break here, in the group in Aalborg, we have focused a lot, we would love, to run more,” says Arnoldsen.

“We have the feeling, last year, that in the end of the season, we missed maybe the last five per cent and that was maybe the reason why we didn't go all the way to win the title in Cologne. So, as a group, we have talked a lot of about that."

“We did a lot of good things last season. In the Danish league, I think we lost two games. We won all the championships in Denmark, and we went to Cologne and had a big dream of lifting the trophy also there.

“We will try to find the five per cent again, so if we are going to Cologne one more time, then we are more prepared than we were in the last season.”

For Aalborg, as Arnoldsen mentions, that missing five per cent might be found in speed — but he is also not sure how much faster the game can get.

“The game is faster and faster. You score more and more goals. So, you also need to be in better and better shape. I hope it will not continue this way so much because I think it's very fast right now, but I think if you want to be the best team in the world, you need to run a lot. You see that in Barcelona and Berlin and Magdeburg also, when they play, they run all the time.”

“My reading the game — I think that was better for me last season”

As for his game personally, Arnoldsen finds the main learning curve lately has been tactical — his reading of the game and increasing his ability in different defensive structures.

“My reading the game — I think that was better for me last season. It was my third year I played the Champions League and I think both offensively and defensively I developed a lot and learnt new tactics. For example, when I play with the national team, then we go for 5-1 through 3-3, so I think there was a lot of new things that I tried last season and developed.”

While Arnoldsen does play at both ends of the court, it is hard not to think of his attack as the standout feature of his game at present. When Aalborg reached the EHF Champions League final in 2024, then 22-year-old Arnoldsen scored 11 goals over the two matches played in Cologne, showing an impressive ability to not only handle the pressure of the biggest stage but perform as a crucial player for his side under it.

And he keeps scoring more. Those 11 goals took his 2023/24 season tally to 35. In 2024/25, Arnoldsen netted 68. In 2025/26, his tally was 99 and he was Aalborg’s leading striker in the Champions League. As centre back, he is also among those orchestrating the offence and finding the chances for others.

What does he think about in a standard attack? “Which system we should play to get the best chance,” says Arnoldsen. “Before every game we always talk about, OK, we want to hit him or him, and then I’m trying to set this. Sometimes I'm the guy that is going to set the system up and sometimes I'm not, but every time we have attack, we're trying to get the best chance to get a goal.”

“It’s an advantage if you have a lot of players that want to take control of the game”

As Arnoldsen mentions, although he is the centre back, he is not always the one setting up the offence. Aside from the fact that the back court in general has shown a tendency towards more fluidity in terms of movement around the court and less rigid positioning, Arnoldsen’s teammates include some great playmakers.

In Aalborg, he plays alongside Sander Sagosen, who was named All-star Team centre back at the EHF EURO 2016 and 2018 and of the EHF Champions League 2017/18, and EHF EURO 2024 and 2024 Olympic Games All-star centre back Juri Knorr. On the national team, his right back is typically Mathias Gidsel, who is well-known to be one of the most creative minds on the court and certainly does not confine himself to the right sideline.

“Sometimes when you are on the court you have a feeling of what is best but sometimes when you're sitting on the bench and maybe you're the guy that's only playing in attack, then it's easier to speak with the coaches and say, ‘OK, in the next attack, we have this idea and we're going to play this system,’” says Arnoldsen.

“But, of course, I think it’s an advantage if you have a lot of players that want to take control of the game because then you can always talk about, ‘OK, we can do this and this.’ Have a conversation about it instead of, ‘OK, we listen to one guy.’ Sometimes it can be really good [to be guided by one player] if we score every time, but if we're not going to do that then it can also be very good to have some ideas from the guy next to you.”

Another unique feature of Aalborg’s play is how many in their line-up have a strong and reliable ground shot, as Arnoldsen does.

“It’s a big advantage for us because we can break through and we can shoot from outside. But if I should be honest, it has also sometimes been our problem that we maybe take the chance a bit too much — we shoot instead of playing to maybe a bigger chance.

“For example, if you see Berlin and Magdeburg and Barcelona, they really play until they get a really big chance, so I think it's a place we will develop this season. But if we find the right way to do it, we have a big advantage because we can shoot from outside and if we are scoring from outside in the beginning of the game, it will give us more space for the pivot or to a breakthrough, so it's a bigger base.”

“If you score the last goal to win the match, you will always get an amazing feeling”

Does Arnoldsen have a favourite move or type of goal? For him, that favourite type of goal is more about the timing in the match: “I think if you ask all handball players, if you score the last goal to win the match, you will always get an amazing feeling,” he says.

“If you really have struggle in a game and it has not been your best game, but, in the end, you score and you win, I think that is the best feeling.”

When it comes to match preparation and video analysis, Arnoldsen is in general a handball fan who watches a lot of games, but keeps his pre-game study to the work done with the team.

“My style is most that I look at the video we see as a team, but I also see a lot of handball games. I'm not the type of guy that is looking at video by myself,” he says.

“It's different, what kind of teams you're going to meet. For example, if you play against Magdeburg, you know there will be a lot of one-against-one situations, and if you play against Kielce, there is more two-on-two against, so, it's a little bit of who you are playing against. For example, if you're playing against Magdeburg, we always look a video and see, OK, maybe he always goes this way, and you need to be a little bit higher than the normal. And if you play against Kielce, maybe we need to stand a little bit closer.”

“I try to share the court with the best players in the world”

At Aalborg, Arnoldsen has had the chance to play alongside players that one could easily guess might have been role models for him — Danish legends like Mikkel Hansen and Niklas Landin, for example, and other Scandinavian back-court stars such as Sagosen.

“It has been a big dream for me,” says Arnoldsen of that point. “When I was a little kid, I was watching Mikkel and Sander and, I know he's a goalkeeper, but also Niklas. And it has been a dream to play with them. I have learnt a lot of things from them, and I also think that it's one of the main reasons why I've developed so fast.

“I try to share the court with the best players in the world, on the national team and in Aalborg, so it has really helped me a lot.”

In fact, Sagosen was Arnoldsen’s biggest role model. “My idol was actually Sander Sagosen. I always loved how he played. How he played, I could see so much myself in him, so when I heard last year or two years ago, when he was coming to Aalborg, I was like, ‘wow, OK, now I'm going to play with my idol. It's going to be amazing.’ He has been my idol since I was a little kid.”

“It's never fun to be out with something — something that is really hard to explain”

A triple national team title holder by the age of 24 and a stellar Champions League career behind him — it might seem that Arnoldsen’s career has been pretty much perfect. But he has had his share of challenges, including an injury that almost kept him entirely out of the EHF EURO 2026 and the decision to take a break due to mental and physical exhaustion in the spring of 2025.

The latter was particularly formative. “I've learnt a lot. It's never fun to be out with something — something that is really hard to explain, because I really love playing handball, but I also think those moments really teach you new things that you had not thought about before you're not feeling well,” says Arnoldsen.

“The biggest lesson I learnt was I should be happy every time I’m standing on the court, because maybe one day, I will not stay there anymore. So, every practice I have, every strength training I have, every game I have, I will enjoy it, and I think that's one of the things I will take with me the rest of my handball career.”

Photos © Aalborg Håndbold; kolektiff images/Jure Erzen/Eva Manhart/Uros Hocevar/Anze Malovrh/Axel Heimken/Jozo Cabraja