How it unfolded
This was the first time indoor seven-a-side handball was played as an official Olympic sport. Sixteen teams split into four groups for a preliminary round before a main round decided final placings, and in the September 10 final at Munich's Olympiahalle, Yugoslavia beat Czechoslovakia 21-16. Yugoslavia was coached by Croatia's Vlado Stenzel, who six years later would take charge of West Germany and win a second title, beating the Soviet Union 20-19 in the 1978 Copenhagen world championship final. Romania took bronze, East Germany finished fourth and the Soviet Union fifth, while host West Germany finished sixth. The scoreline looks low by today's standard: the two finalists combined for 37 goals, a bit more than half what a top men's match produces in the 2020s. There was no passive-play count, no immediate throw-off, and no seventh-attacker rule at the time, and a single possession routinely ran much longer than it does today.
Why it still matters
Becoming an Olympic sport meant national federations across Europe suddenly received government budgets, and the effect was immediate. Outdoor eleven-a-side, which had held the world championship through 1966, disappeared from the top level within a decade, and countries began investing in gymnasiums and indoor leagues. Without this decision, today's 40x20-meter court, the Bundesliga and the Champions League would not exist in anything like their current form.