There will be an opening ceremony at which pretty people will sing and dance about unity and harmony, and possibly mime throwing a ball into a happy net … and then the players will come on and get down to the nitty gritty of trying to win a world title by brutally beating everyone else.  Today there is but one match: the hosts Spain take on Algeria (starting at 6pm UK).

Spain are the 2005 champions, ranked 8th in the world and are hosts.  Algeria are ranked 21st in the world and finished second to Tunisia in the 2012 African Championships.  The two teams met during qualifying for the Olympics – Spain running out 28:20 winners in Alicante.  Anything other than a massive, morale-boosting win for the Spaniards will be a major surprise.  Expect the Algerians to push the boundaries of legal defence to the limit if they are to stay close and try and sneak something.

The match isn’t live on UK TV.  If you want to watch you’ll need to spend £39.99 subscribing to livehandball.tv (this covers every match in this tournament) or deposit any sum in a Bet365 account and watch the lower quality live streaming there.