In the unpredictable sport of handball anything can happen, but world No 1 Ivano Balic remains the scourge of Europe and is ready to lead Croatia's defense of its Olympic title next summer, according to the Croatian Handball Federation.

Ivano Balic (second right) stays one step ahead of his Czech opponents at the Men's World Championship on January 27, 2007 in Germany. [Agencies]

"He is the Mozart of handball," spokesman Tom Lukic told China Daily on Tuesday.

"He moves strangely, more like a basketball player sometimes, but his combinations, his way of thinking sets him apart. When no one else sees the path, he always finds a genius solution. He sees the opportunity two seconds before everyone else."

Balic, who plays center, started his career at basketball club KK Split before migrating over.

"But are we still the best team in Europe? If you asked me in January, I would have said yes, but now I don't know."

Croatia, the 2003 world champion, underperformed at this year's worlds in Germany, where it finished fifth, and also at last year's European championships, when it settled for fourth. Balic was named tournament MVP in Europe despite the result.

The early exit at the worlds can be blamed on an unlucky quarterfinal against France -- at a stretch.

Reigning world champs Germany, France, Spain and Croatia are considered the best in Europe, even though Norway won the latest continental title.

Europe has always dominated the sport, which features six players and a goalkeeper bouncing, passing and slamming a ball into the opponent's goal over two 30-minute halves.

The court measures 40m by 20m and includes a 6m arc around the goal. Penalty shootouts, colored cards and extra time rules apply, similar to soccer.

European rivalries run deep and occasionally follow familiar patterns. Denmark, for example, keeps butchering Croatia in important bronze-medal matches, while Croatia rallies to beat Germany at pressure-laden finals -- something it did at both the 2003 worlds and again at the 2004 Athens Games.

Apart from these few vaguely calculable algorithms, however, no one knows what to expect from the game these days.

"Take Poland, who stole in as total outsiders at this year's world championships and finished second. In handball the competition is rising due to increased club activity," said Lukic.

Croatia has the talent to pull through -- if anything its squad is more talented and deeper than in 2004 -- but it needs to step up for January's European championship to prove itself.

Veteran coach Lino Cervar will stay at the helm, as he was in Athens. Under his stewardship, the squad won all its Olympic matches.

Croatia ranked 44th overall in Athens with five medals, including silvers in men's swimming and rowing, for its best performance at the Games since independence.

But men's handball remains the cornerstone of all its efforts.

"You need at least 10 good players for a team, and at the moment we have 35 of them," said Lukic.

"We have two or three very good centers coming up who may one day be as good as Balic, but they are still very young."

These include center back Domagoj Duvnjak, MVP of the recent U-19 European championships in Estonia. At 20, he already has more accolades than Balic at that age and is an almost certain fixture for Beijing.

"When he enters the court it will be a moment for the world to remember."

Croatia's men's youth team made it to an unprecedented fourth place at this year's world championships, while its junior team is world-ranked No 2 -- a potentially lethal combination for future opponents.

Only two men have won the title of world player of the year twice: Balic in 2003 and 2006, and Kyrgyzstan-born Talant Dujshebaev in 1994 and 1996. Dujshebaev later played for Spain.

They are the greatest players the world has ever seen, but they belong to different eras and different stages of the sport's development.

Now handball is faster and more like its American cousin, basketball. Scores upwards of 40 goals, once unheard of, are no longer uncommon.

Croatia's men's handball team also won gold at the Atlanta Games in 1996. The country won twice more as a part of Yugoslavia, first on the sport's Olympic debut at Munich 1972, then again at Los Angeles 1984.