Valero Rivera López

Valero Rivera López (born 14 February 1953) is a Spanish handball 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 and is considered a club legend.^[1] In 2012 he was named the best men's coach in the world by the International Handball Federation.^[2]

Valero Rivera López
Rivera in 2014
Personal information
Born	(1953-02-14) 14 February 1953 (age 72) Zaragoza, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Height	1.84 m (6 ft 0 in)
Youth career
Years	Team
1966–1971	FC Barcelona
Senior clubs
Years	Team
1971–1983	FC Barcelona
Teams managed
1983–2003	FC Barcelona
2008–2013	Spain
2013–2025	Qatar
Medal record World Championships 2013 Spain 2011 Sweden Asian Championships 2014 Bahrain 2016 Bahrain 2018 South Korea 2020 Kuwait 2022 Saudi Arabia

He is the father of fellow handballer Valero Rivera Folch, who he has also coached.

Playing career

Valero Rivera played his entire career for Barcelona. He debuted for the senior team in the 1971-72 season.^[1] He played until 1983, and won 8 titles with the club as a player.^[1]

Coaching career

When he retired at 31 he became a coach at Barcelona, 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 multiple titles. He left the club in 2005. By then he had won over 70 club titles.^[3]

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 held in Serbia.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6][7]

Private

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