Mathias Gidsel has been named IHF Male World Player of the Year for the third year in a row, the first man to claim the sport's most prestigious individual prize in three consecutive seasons. The Denmark right back joins Mikkel Hansen and Nikola Karabatic as the only players in the history of the award to have won it three times, an honour roll Gidsel said he is still trying to process.
"Imagine going to be the best in a sport three times in a row, it's incredible. I'm of course extremely proud," Gidsel said in his reaction to the announcement. The 27-year-old, who plays his club handball at Fuchse Berlin, won 68 percent of the coaches' vote and 60.8 percent of the fan vote, polling figures that exceeded the combined totals of his teammates Emil Nielsen and Ivan Martinovic.
Gidsel's 2025 was the kind of campaign that leaves no room for argument. He was named MVP and top scorer at the IHF Men's World Championship as Denmark claimed their fourth consecutive world title. At club level he finished as the EHF Champions League's top scorer and the second-best scorer in the German Bundesliga, helping Fuchse Berlin reach the European final.
"To be tied now with Mikkel Hansen and Nikola Karabatic, I think that tells the whole story," he said of the historical comparison. Hansen claimed his three awards in 2016, 2019 and 2021, while Karabatic was named the world's best player in 2014 and 2015 alongside an earlier honour.
Despite the volume of trophies and individual recognition, Gidsel insists nothing about him has changed. "I'm always Mathias," he said. "I've always been the same guy, no matter how many times I am going to win things." Coaches and teammates regularly highlight his work ethic and relentless conditioning, and Gidsel's own framing places his obsession with the game at the centre of everything.
"I always want to be a part of the game," he said. "That's my playground."
What sets Gidsel apart from many recent dominant athletes is his willingness to talk publicly about doubt. Through his personal newsletter he has shared the mental side of the sport in a way that is unusual for an active world champion. "Also insecure, we also doubt," he wrote on the topic. "The best people in sport sometimes doubt themselves." That kind of openness has played well with younger players and has been credited inside the Danish federation with helping a new generation of players speak more freely about pressure.
The 2025 award caps a stretch in which Denmark's grip on the men's game has tightened rather than loosened. With Gidsel at his peak, an experienced supporting cast and a federation that has made succession planning a priority, the rest of the world will need a serious step up to break the Danish hold on either club or international honours. For now, Gidsel is the standard against which every right back in the world is measured.