Slovenian First League (men's handball)


The Slovenian First League of Handball, currently named Liga NLB due to sponsorship reasons, is the top team handball league in Slovenia. It is organized by the Handball Federation of Slovenia. The league comprises twelve teams.

History

The Handball Federation of Slovenia was formed on 11 December 1949 under the former Handball federation of Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, the Slovenian clubs played in the Yugoslavian Handball Championship in I. and II. league, the interrepublic and the republic leagues. Slovan, Celje and Rudar Trbovlje were the only Slovenian teams that played in the Yugoslav First League. In the 1991–92 season, just after the Slovenian independence, the Handball Federarion of Slovenia was accepted to the European Handball Federation and the International Handball Federation and the first season in Europe for the Slovenian teams was played in the 1992–93 season.

Names

Since 1991, the league has been named after sponsors on several occasions, giving it the following names:
The league is conducted in two phases. In the first phase, 10 teams compete in a home-and-away round-robin series with the country's representative in the SEHA League, currently Celje and Gorenje, being exempt from this stage. All teams advance from the regular season to one of two postseason stages, depending on their league position. The top four teams from the regular season are joined by the SEHA League representatives in the second phase. These two teams start the second phase with the same number of points as the regular season winner. Each team plays a total of 10 games in this phase; as in the regular season, a home-and-away round-robin is used. The bottom six teams play a home-and-away round-robin series with one another; these teams' results from the regular season carry over to the second phase. At the end of the season, the bottom two finishers are automatically relegated to the second level of the Slovenian league system, the 1. B DRL.

Clubs

As of the 2020–21 season
ClubTitlesYears Won
Celje
24
1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Gorenje
3
2009, 2012, 2013
Koper
1
2011
Prule 67
1
2002

EHF coefficient

The table shows the position of Slovenian League, based on its EHF coefficient ranking.
;Country ranking:
EHF league ranking for the 2019–20 season