Liga Asobal is the premier professional

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the ...

league in Spain. It was founded in 1958 with the name of División de Honor, changing its name to the current name in 1990. The Liga ASOBAL, which is played under EHF rules, currently consists of 16 teams, including famous ones like

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Found ...

, Ademar León,

Bidasoa __NOTOC__ The Bidasoa (, ; french: Bidassoa, ) is a river in the Basque Country of northern Spain and southern France that runs largely south to north. Named as such downstream of the village of Oronoz-Mugairi (municipality of Baztan) in the p ...

and

Granollers Granollers () is a city in central Catalonia, about 30 kilometres north-east of Barcelona. It is the capital and most densely populated city in the comarca of Vallès Oriental. Granollers is now a bustling business centre, having grown from a ...

. Famous handball players who have played in the league include Jackson Richardson, Talant Dujshebaev, Staffan Olsson, Mikhail Yakimovich, Ólafur Stefánsson,

Oleg Kisselev Oleg Viktorovich Kiselyov (russian: Олег Викторович Киселёв; born 11 January 1967 in Yaroslavl) is a Russian handball player. He won a gold medal with the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. H ...

, Alberto Urdiales, Mateo Garralda, Enric Masip, Iñaki Urdangarin,

David Barrufet David Barrufet Bofill (born 4 June 1970 in Barcelona, Spain) is a former Spanish handball goalkeeper, who last played for FC Barcelona Handbol during the 2009-10 season. He began playing handball in SAFA Horta school in Barcel ...

Kristian Kjelling Kristian Cato Walby Kjelling (; born 8 September 1980) is a retired Norwegian handball player, who last played for the Norwegian club Drammen HK. He is now their coach. Career Before re-joining Drammen HK he played for the Spanish clubs Portla ...

, Mikkel Hansen,

Petar Metličić Petar Metličić (born 25 December 1976) is a retired Croatian handball player. He was captain of the Croatian national team Ivano Balić Ivano Balić (; born 1 April 1979) is a Croatian former professional handballer who is currently working as assistant coach of the Croatia national handball team. He was voted five times in a row as the most valuable player in major internatio ...

Juanín García Juan Antonio "Juanín" García Lorenzana (born 28 August 1977 in León) is a Spanish handball player. He currently plays for CB Ademar León. He participated at the 2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Game ...

, Mats Olsson, David Davis, László Nagy, Raúl Entrerríos, Alberto Entrerríos, and many others.

History

* The "División de Honor" Handball championship was created in 1958 and was managed by the Spanish Handball Federation (FEBM) until 1990. ASOBAL (Handball Clubs Association) was formed in 1984. In 1990, ASOBAL took control of the División de Honor and renamed it Liga ASOBAL. *

have won every championship since 2011, in part due to the disbandment of previous top clubs

Ciudad Real Ciudad Real (, ; en, "Royal City") is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region. History It was founded ...

and Portland San Antonio. *The 13-time champions

have not won the title since the 1973–74 season.

Championship rules

Each team of every division has to play with all the other teams of its division twice, once at home and the other at the opponent's stadium. This means that in ''Liga ASOBAL'' the league ends after every team plays 30 matches. Like many other leagues in continental Europe, the ''Liga ASOBAL'' takes a winter break once each team has played half its schedule. One unusual feature of the league is that the two halves of the season are played in the same order—that is, the order of each team's first-half fixtures is repeated in the second half of the season, with the only difference being the stadiums used. Each victory adds 2 points to the team in the league ranking. Each drawn adds 1 point.head-to-head. At the end of the league, the winner is: #The team that has most points in the ranking. #If two or more teams are level on points, the winner is the team that has the best results #If there is no winner after applying the second rule, then the team with the best overall goal difference wins.

2022-23 season teams

Champions by year

Primera División champions

División de Honor champions

Liga ASOBAL champions

Performance by club

All-time Liga ASOBAL table

*''Updated at completion of 2017–18 season.'' League or status at 2018–19 season:

Statistics

EHF coefficients

The following data indicates Spanish coefficient rankings between European handball leagues. ;Country ranking: EHF League Ranking for 2018/19 season: *1. (''1'')

Handball-Bundesliga The Handball-Bundesliga (HBL) is the top German professional handball league. From 2007 onwards, the league was sponsored by Toyota and has officially been called the ''Toyota Handball-Bundesliga''. This lasted until 2012 when the Deutsche Kr ...

(128.50) *2. (''2'') Liga ASOBAL (115) *3. (''3'') Nemzeti Bajnokság I (106.83) *4. (''4'')

LNH Division 1 LNH Division 1, doing business as Starligue and currently known as Liqui Moly Starligue for sponsorship reasons, is the premier men's professional handball league in France. It is administered by the Ligue Nationale de Handball, under delegation ...

(105.83) *5. (''5'')

Polish Superliga The Polish Superliga, also known as the PGNiG Superliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top men's handball league in Poland. The current champion is Vive Kielce, the most titled Polish handball club, maintaining its position at the top of the tab ...

(75.71) ;Club ranking: EHF Club Ranking as of 3 March 2019: * 1.

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(1002) * 25. Ademar León (346) * 28.

La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous community and province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other cities and towns in the province include Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Haro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, an ...

(317) * 32.

(295) * 52. Anaitasuna (165)

References

External links

Official website

The ASOBAL Magazine, "balonmano"

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liga Asobal 1 Professional sports leagues in Spain