After 60 highly dramatic minutes, the score was 31:31, but Füchse Berlin held their nerve better in the penalty shootout: With a 34:33 victory over cup winners THW Kiel, the German champions defended their Super Cup title in front of a sold-out crowd at the SAP Garden in Munich.

Thirteen years ago, THW Kiel won the last Handball Super Cup in Munich's Olympic Hall with a 29:26 victory over SG Flensburg-Handewitt. Now, the record champions, record cup winners and record Super Cup winners were once again on the verge of triumph at the premiere in the sold-out SAP Garden in Munich, but missed out on their 14th title in their 25th appearance in this competition in the penalty shoot-out against Füchse Berlin.

Emil Madsen (crossbar), Bence Imre (against Dejan Milosavljev) and Elias Ellefsen á Skipagøtu in the final throw against Lasse Ludwig missed their penalty throws, while Andreas Wolff saved two penalty throws. New signing Tobias Gröndahl scored the decisive final goal for Berlin, who had won the Super Cup for the first time last year with a 32:30 victory over SC Magdeburg in Düsseldorf.

The 34:33 (19:14, 31:31) result in Munich was also a delayed rematch, as the two teams had already faced each other in the Super Cup in 2014, with THW winning 24:18 in Stuttgart. Mathias Gidsel was voted the best player of the Handball Super Cup, scoring eight goals, as did Kiel's Elias Ellefsen á Skipagøtu.

The match between the German champions and the DHB Cup winners for the Super Cup has been a fixture in the DAIKIN HBL calendar since 1994. THW Kiel and SG Wallau-Massenheim faced each other in the competition's debut. The Super Cup proved to be a resounding success, thrilling the audience and bringing handball back into the spotlight at the start of the season. Although SG Wallau-Massenheim was the surprise winner of the premiere, their opponents from Kiel at the time remain the undisputed record winners to this day. With 25 appearances, the Zebras have lifted the trophy 13 times.

For seven years in a row, from 2018 to 2024, the Super Cup was held at the PSD BANK DOME in Düsseldorf. The 2024/25 season opener saw a special premiere: for the first time in the Super Cup's long history, the first titles of the season in the Alsco Handball Bundesliga Women (HBF) and the DAIKIN HBL were played for together. Since 2025, the grand season opener has found a new home at Munich's SAP Garden. In 2026, the 33rd edition of the spectacular season opener will be held for the first time under the name Rexel Super Cup in Germany's most modern arena.