Valero Rivera López (born 14 February 1953) is a Spanish

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of thr ...

coach and former player. He is a world champion from the 2013 World Championship where he coached the Spanish national team. He played for and has coached

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça (), is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of ...

and is considered a club legend. In 2012 he was named the best men's coach in the world by the

International Handball Federation The International Handball Federation (IHF) is the administrative and controlling body for handball and beach handball. IHF is responsible for the organisation of handball's major international tournaments, notably the IHF World Men's Handball C ...

. He is the father of fellow handballer

Valero Rivera Folch Valero Rivera Folch (born 22 February 1985) is a Spanish handball player who plays for HBC Nantes and the Spain national team. His father is the former handballer Valero Rivera López. He is a World champion with Spain from 2013 and a European ...

, who he has also coached.

Playing career

Valero Rivera played his entire career for

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. He debuted for the senior team in the 1971-72 season. He played until 1983, and won 8 titles with the club as a player.

Coaching career

When he retired at 31 he became a coach at

, replacing Jordi Petit. He coached the club for 21 years, where they became one of the best teams in the world, winning the

EHF Champions League The EHF Champions League is the most important club handball competition for men's teams in Europe and involves the leading teams from the top European nations. The competition is organised every year by EHF. The official name for the men's com ...

multiple titles. He left the club in 2005. By then he had won over 70 club titles. In 2008 he became the head coach of the Spanish national team. His first success was at the 2011 World Championship, where he won bronze medals. A year later he participated in the

2012 European Men's Handball Championship The 2012 EHF European Men's Handball Championship was the tenth edition of the men's continental handball tournament, which was held in Serbia between 15 and 29 January 2012. Sixteen teams qualified for the event, including host nation Serbia, ...

held in

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

. In 2013 he became a World champion winning the 2013 World Championship on home soil. Later the same year he took over the Qatari national team. Here he won the Asian championship 5 times in a row from 2014 to 2022. At the 2015 World Championship he coached the Qatari team. He retired from the Qatari national team in 2023.

Private

He has a degree in sport from Instituto Nacional de Educación Física de Cataluña.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivera Lopez, Valero Living people Sportspeople from Zaragoza 1953 births Spanish male handball players FC Barcelona Handbol players Liga ASOBAL players Spanish handball coaches Spanish expatriate sportspeople in Qatar Handball coaches of international teams Expatriate handball coaches Sports coaches from Barcelona Handball players from Catalonia 20th-century Spanish sportsmen