Abstract
The sample of observation were the male senior national selections of the 16th World Championship in Handball, held in Egypt from 1-16 June 1999. By the transversal model at 19 games, the activity of players was analyzed in 2100 attacks and 2032 defenses of the medal winning team sand teams that did not win medals. The scope of the paper was to identify and analyze mistakes in the phases of attack and defense from the exactly determined structure of contestants' activity of the highly selected handball players as well as to examine the effects of those mistakes at the final result of the games and the team standings. The analysis of activities was done by primary diagnosis according to the standings of teams and to spaces in relation: the total amount of the analyzed mistakes, types of mistakes, consequences of mistakes, realization of penalty shots, player less in attack and/or defense, playing positions (K, B, P, (S)). The results of multi-variant analysis of variance, discriminative analysts, univariant analysis of variance, Student t-test on proportions, factor analysis undoubtedly point that there are statistically significant differences in favor of the medal winning teams at the analyzed space and elements inside them in the phase of attack, which had crucial influence on the final results of the games and team standings. The performed analyses demonstrate that in defense phase there are no statistically significant differences between the observed groups so it could be said that there is great similarity in the play of the observed groups in defense. The obtained results have controlling and corrective function on selection and training of players at all levels, and with certain precautions it is possible to use the obtained results in predicting maximal values and results in simulation process and competition.