Omar's game: If you don't have this footwork, it’s hard to be helpful nowadays

Six years ago, Yahia Omar was arriving at his first European club, Veszprém. Since then, he has made himself a big name in the EHF Champions League, first becoming a core player for the Hungarian powerhouse then moving to PSG, where he had an immediate impact, in 2024. The 27-year-old right back is a consistently dangerous attacker with a career high record of 83 goals, scored in the 2021/22 season, and 66 — PSG’s third highest — in his debut year with the French side. 

Speaking to eurohandball.com ahead of the 2025/26 season start, Omar was looking to his second year with PSG — coming off the first holiday period in a while, which he put to good use, and getting acquainted with new coach Stefan Madsen. 

“This period was the first vacation I had in a long period in summer, so I had the chance to focus more on my physical abilities — that I can increase my speed, increase my shooting ability,” says Omar. “During the season, when you start the games, you don't have too much time to work individually. You focus more collectively on the games or whatever, so I was focusing more on my whole body. I actually changed my diet to help me be lighter in the running. 

“Handball, every year, it's getting more and more fast,” continues Omar. “Now you have to have more cardio than you have strength, I think, so trying to like, develop with the game a little bit.”

Omar immediately raises one of the most interesting points of PSG’s game — speed. Specifically, he works alongside a player who has weaponised speed in his own way: Luc Steins. How did arriving at PSG and playing alongside Steins influence Omar’s game?  

“Luc is really incredibly fast. I think the first month I had to really get to know how he plays because he's so fast, and he's always running everywhere and then he pushes me to run more, so I broke my hamstring after the first month,” laughs Omar. 

“But OK, now I'm used to how he plays. He does more the running for the others, I see. When you have a really fast guy, then not all of the guys around him have to move too much.” 

The goal of becoming a bit lighter to increase his speed and endurance is an interesting one, reflecting how handball has been changing even in the years Omar has been in Europe. On arrival in Hungary, he was doing the opposite — increasing muscle mass. 

“When I arrived in Veszprém, my first year, the guys around me were [Blaz] Blagotinsek, [Mirsad] Terzic,” recalls Omar. “I remember the coach saying, ‘backs, you have to be over 100 kilos. There's not a chance that you can play this kind of game without having the muscular load to keep up with the guys in defence.’ So, that was the goal — the goal was to train as much as possible to get stronger, to have the power to go against these guys every day. Training with them, it was really a privilege. It helped me a lot in this period. 

“But now, I feel like the handball has changed more. Now it's more the lighter players or the faster players who are having, like, let's say better form. 

“Now everybody knows how to go high up. All the players are fast enough to fight,” says Omar. “You have to have the ability to make the one-against-one, to run, to make the crosses for others. If not, if you don't have this, let's say, footwork, it’s hard to be helpful nowadays.” 

This season, PSG welcome new coach Madsen, who has replaced Raul Gonzalez after the Spaniard led the side for seven years. 

“The big change I see with Stefan I’d say is more about the mental work or the psychological aspect,” says Omar. “I think the part with him that is different in that he tries to keep up with all the individuals, all the people, how they are feeling inside the team, in the environment. 

“This is where you live. You come here every day. You live almost 80 per cent of your life with your teammates. If you're not feeling good, if you're not feeling confident all the time, if you're not enjoying, after a while, let's say, as the season starts you're good and then in the end you almost lose your mind, so he's keeping really good with this. He's trying to take more the pressure and the responsibility on him. He's trying also to connect and communicate with people a lot.” 

On a national team level, Omar is a standout player for Egypt, leading the side in goal count at both the 2025 World Championship and 2024 Olympic Games. At Tokyo 2020, he became the first non-European in the Olympic Games All-star Team since 1992. Omar is also the two-time back-to-back MVP of the African Championship. 

2025/26 marks Omar’s seventh EHF Champions League season. Before arriving in Hungary in 2019, he played for two clubs in Egypt: Gezira, where he started his career, and then several years with Zamalek. 

“People always tell me, around me, I still have the physical talent of African players,” says Omar, referring to elements like a high jump. “Also, I feel the part where it’s a little bit, let's say, a street style in playing — like, not everything is just on form, but try to get the job done. This is how it is back home. 

“And I feel also the hunger. The hunger stays the same,” continues Omar. “For all the Africans, all the Egyptians — we're trying to achieve something that, if we think back and look back on what the older teams in Egypt have done, maybe we have achieved the same as them or maybe even more, but I don't think we're done. I think when I came to Europe, I was very eager and hungry to learn, and I still have — this has not changed at all. And for me, I don't think this will ever change.” 

For Egypt and his club, Omar is an important player at both ends of the court. Looking at offence, what goes through his head in a standard attack? 

“There's two aspects,” says Omar. “I feel one is more the collective side, like, what the playmaker will tell me to do, which action he gives me. 

“The second thing would be how I feel now — I feel that I'm already on form, I’m hot, I scored a couple of goals. Now, it's the time to take more risks, to have more shots. 

“Thinking about the next shot — if I shoot from outside, how will it be? Where am I going to shoot? Because the last shot I shot maybe there and now I need to change to shoot there. So, I'm trying to figure out what is the situation that the playmaker wants me to do, where it will put me on the field, and if I have the ball there, what decision do I have? Is it a shot? Is it a pass to the pivot? Is it the wing? I try to be ready for this kind of situation.”

In defence, Omar plays the number two position. “Defence is probably the opposite, because it's a reaction. You're not waiting to do something. You're waiting to try to read what the opponents are going to do. So, the action starts, you start to think, is it going to end from your side? What is the left back going to try to do? Is he going to come now, one-against-one? Is he going to the middle, so you'll have to follow there and take the pivot? 

“Most of the time, you try just not to get tricked, because now, with all the new tactics, everybody is using so many tricks. So now you think they're going to do this, and then you react, and then suddenly one guy is alone because you reacted to another thing. So, you try to just to be more calm and be ready for the one-against-one or for trying to play with the pivot. It’s more a reaction than an action.”

As right back, Omar plays a position that is one of the most competitive in the game. For example, also calling right back home are EHF Excellence Awards 2024/25 MVP Mathias Gidsel and MVP of the EHF EURO 2024 Nedim Remili. In the EHF Champions League 2023/24, four of the five top scorers of the season were right backs.

In sports where being left-handed is an advantage in certain positions, left handers are sought after and may benefit from increased playing time in their youth as well as better chances of selection as youngsters. Considering how many right backs are hugely influential in the game today, it is interesting to consider this background and how it is possible some of them developed to have a slight edge.  

“When we were young, everybody was trying to search for left-handed because they were rare. If you already had a good physical ability, you're tall and you're left-handed, then already coaches are going to try to focus with you,” says Omar. “Now, it ended up that everybody on the left hand is really good, because everybody was focusing more on them. 

“In my team, since I was young, all the coaches, they had big hopes for me because I had, like, not crazy good, but just basics — ‘you’re left-handed, you're tall. If you work, you can be fast. If you work, you can be strong. You have the potential to grow and you're smart,’ so then everybody is just waiting to work with you and waiting to see how you would develop. Right now, the right back position is really competitive.” 

Omar has suffered one major injury in his career, in December 2022, which sidelined him for the rest of that season — but there were some positives. 

“I had a lot of time to not think about handball, and sometimes this is important, because when you come back, you come back with bigger goals, with more hunger again. You're not distracted by the routine that you have every day. You’re like brand new. If I thought about handball a little bit, I think I was just trying to focus on the physical part or to come back better as before, because now, the physical part is clearly dominant. You can see the big teams, you can see even in the leagues, you know, the stronger or faster teams — they always have an advantage,” says Omar.  

“If you look on the Bundesliga, the French league or the Hungarian even, the bigger difference between, let's say, the top two, three clubs and the rest is not just the quality of handball, but the quality of the strength, the quality of the speed. Handball became very physically competitive, and everybody is trying to develop. I think we reached the ceiling that training with the team and training in handball is not enough — you have to go on this extra mile outside. Try to figure it out, like, either with a nutritionist, either with a physical coach on your own — you have to go this extra mile to be better than the others.” 

Photos: Paris Saint-Germain; One Veszprém HC; kolektiff images/Jozo Cabraja