The sample of 18 players; permanent competitions for the best team, served to establish the existence of cliques in a handball team in the period of its greatest professional efficiency. The data covered functional and emotional relations within the team, existence of cliques, their character and interrelations. All this was established by means of the algorythm ITA which determines, i. e. reveals the cliques on the basis of structure of communication networks. The formation analysis of cliques on the basis of input and output channels, according to functional and emotional criterion, revealed as follows: - on the basis of the functional criterion (choice of team in which an entity wishes to play) two cliques were formed (with high correlation) on the basis of input channels - entities favoring cooperation (mostly due to their status in the team) and the rest. - on the basis of the emotional criterion (choice of fellow players with whom the entity wishes to share the room) three cliques were formed (also highly correlated) on the basis of input channels - differentiation according to chronological age and companionship the team had repeated its prior performance displaying a hundred percent efficiency placing it in the higher rank of competition. This points out that high professional efficiency can for some time be maintained despite the poor relations within the team, particularly when a strong motive and good chance of success are present. However, the situation had finally brought an unavoidable break-up, when disagreements came out into the open and the team lost its rank in the league.

Potvrđena je pretpostavka da se visoka profesionala efikasnost može neko vrijeme održavati unatoč narušenim odnosima u ekipi. Utvrđena je, naime, visoka homogenost na funkcionalnom planu, dok su slabije emocionalne veze uskoro dovele do neminovnog pada profesionalne afikasnosti ekipe.