Dhe playlist in the Westfalenhalle was not put together with the purpose of teasing the German handball players. As they did a lap of honor in front of 10,522 spectators after their 30:23 quarter-final win against Brazil, laughing and with their eyes red with tears of joy, the popular tunes boomed out of the speakers: “Oh, how beautiful that is” with this time the laconic line “You haven’t seen anything like that in a long time”.
You can even say very precisely how long it has been: it had been 18 years since German handball players last made it to the semi-finals at a world championship. In 2007, players like Grit Jurack, Nadine Krause and Maren Baumbach even won World Cup bronze in Paris under national coach Armin Emrich. Since then, the day has been considered the starting point for many tragedies that subsequent national players have suffered in recent years.
:Germany’s handball players reach the semi-finals
“We have been waiting for this moment for such an incredibly long time”: For the first time in 17 years, the DHB handball players are in the last four of a major tournament. The defense was once again convincing in the 30:23 win against Brazil.
The German women’s national handball team had played 17 tournaments in a row since their medalless participation in the European Championship semi-finals in 2008 without making it to the last four again. Of these 17 tournaments, Antje Döll, 37, took part in seven, Alina Grijseels, 29, eight and Emily Vogel, 27, and Xenia Smits, 31, ten each. Each of these tournaments ended in a losing all-or-nothing game, and each ultimately turned out to be a disappointment. “These players have gone through deep valleys,” said national coach Markus Gaugisch amidst the celebrations on Tuesday evening: “And this is now the reward for sticking with it and never giving up after all the setbacks.”
The legendary hero of never giving up is Sisyphus, who bravely and tirelessly rolls a stone that keeps rolling down the mountain up the mountain again and again. Four of the heroines of German women’s handball are Döll, Grijseels, Vogel and Smits because they never allowed themselves to be discouraged and tried every year to break an eternal spell. As if Sisyphus had actually managed to keep the stone on the mountain in the end.
While the game is still on the field, the German players are in tears
You have to know this history to understand why Emily Vogel and Alina Grijseels could hardly hold back their tears on Tuesday evening in Dortmund’s Westfalenhalle, when the quarter-final game against Brazil had not yet ended. Vogel on the left in the backcourt and Grijseels in the middle were only two or three meters apart, throwing the ball to each other and looking at each other. Shortly before the end, her team was in an unassailable lead. “Then it became clear to me that we couldn’t lose this anymore,” Vogel said, “and Alina looked at me and called over: ‘Emmy, Emmy, a little more!’ Because she saw that I was already fighting.”
However, Grijseels, who plays for Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga and for whom the international match in the Westfalenhalle was a double home game, warned Vogel to persevere not only for reasons of sporting discipline. But because she was fighting back tears herself. “One or two minutes before the end I realized that it was enough, that we had done it,” she reported: “The tears come to my eyes and I look over at Emmy, and exactly the same thing is happening to him. That didn’t exactly help me to pull myself together again.”
And so this 30:23 win against Brazil in front of a fanatical home crowd served as a great moment of redemption for handball players who had been suffering for years. That’s why Vogel, who was called Bölk before her wedding, was allowed to say emotionally afterwards: “We’ve been waiting for this moment for so damn long.” And Grijseels added: “Now we have achieved what we have longed for all these years – we had to take a lot of criticism and wanted to show: We have worked a lot, we have invested a lot.”
For national coach Gaugisch, who started in 2022 and experienced four of the disappointing tournaments, the current success is actually just a logical consequence of the past few years. “The players have grown,” he said: “They not only took part in knockout games in the national team, but also in their clubs. Blomberg and Bensheim played playoffs in the Bundesliga, Emmy Vogel and Xenia Smits know this from the Champions League.” The players have matured because of it. “It’s simply a development,” says Gaugisch, “it takes a long time to find this stability, but for me it’s not just a mental issue, but above all a handball issue.”
The opponent in the semi-finals is France or Denmark
And now it continues. The semi-finals will take place in Rotterdam on Friday against the winner of the quarter-finals, which took place late on Wednesday evening, between reigning world champions France and third-placed Denmark. On Sunday it’s all about a medal in Rotterdam. In a possible final, the European champion and Olympic champion Norway could be the opponent. In a possible game for third place, bronze could be at stake against the host Dutch team.
“We’re taking the tailwind with us to Rotterdam,” says Gaugisch. “Anything can happen now, although unfortunately we no longer have the entire home crowd behind us,” says backcourt player Vogel. “Anything is possible if we continue to play together as a team,” says defender Aimée von Pereira, for whom this is her first-ever tournament.
If the German players end up leaving the World Cup without a medal, that could mean another moment of disappointment on Sunday. But no one can take away the euphoria from Tuesday in Dortmund. They have to save them forever. That evening Emily Vogel said: “To have reached this semi-final feels like gold.”