The draw for the European Handball Championships was “a nightmare,” said German goalkeeper Andreas Wolff. And this argument can be followed. Austria, Serbia and Spain, the opponents in the preliminary round in the Danish city of Herning in Midtjylland, are tough. World champions Denmark, European champions France, Norway and Portugal are expected to join them in the main round. Only two teams from this group qualify for the semi-finals. Mareridt, say the Danes, nightmare.
For three days, the German handball players thought they were within striking distance of the longed-for semi-finals, after the 42:31 victory in the friendly against Iceland on Thursday in Nuremberg, the most convincing international performance in a long time. But the elation is over again, in the second test on Sunday in the SAP Garden in Munich there was a deserved 29:31 defeat against this time much stronger Icelanders. The tempo game, the attack in defense, the strength in the finish – many things that the spectators in Nuremberg were able to marvel at were denied to the fans in Munich.
:German handball players lose against Iceland
At the international match in Munich, the DHB team lost 29:31 to Iceland. Three days after the big win in the first game, it becomes clear what the team still has to work on before the European Championships.
There is no question that you can lose in handball against Iceland, a team full of great players from the big clubs in Europe. However, the disappointment over the drop in performance was noticeable. Middleman Juri Knorr spoke of a “stupid shit day” and summed up the mood.
“We still have a long way to go to play really stable,” says Gislason
Once hui, once ugh: the search for consistency is an annoying, recurring topic for Alfred Gislason, the national coach. Outliers are possible, see Thursday’s eleven-goal win. Or the exhilarating quarter-final against France at the Olympics. The German team has the tools to defeat big opponents. More often, however, it drags its way through games and makes life difficult for itself by ineffectively exploiting chances. In the end it will be close: That was also the case at the World Cup in Denmark, when Germany failed in the quarter-finals against Portugal.
Gislason had explicitly wanted his compatriots from Iceland as test match opponents because he wanted to really challenge his team ten weeks before the start of the European Championship. That was successful, but Gislason stated: “We still have a long way to go to play really stable.” The national coach has recently tried a lot to give new impetus to the squad. He installed a trio from Bundesliga surprise team VfL Gummersbach; In Tom Kiesler there is a pure defense specialist who should be a real option for the European Championships as an inside blocking force alongside captain Johannes Golla or Julian Köster. Mathis Häseler was given a chance on the right wing, and Miro Schluroff, who, in his intrepid manner as a right-hander, is used to helping out in the right back, has been there for a while.
But the Gummersbach trio will not solve the problems at the European Championships alone. Rather, Gislason must hope that his established forces can afford fewer fluctuations than in the recent past. These are sometimes significant, which was demonstrated by just looking at Juri Knorr during the week of the test match. In the first game against Iceland, the middle man came into the game late, but still scored nine goals (without a missed attempt) and was the best man on the board. The second game in Munich completely missed him. After his substitution, Knorr received a two-minute penalty and several bad passes, and his result in attack was a goal.
There are two tests left before the start of the European Championship, Croatia is the opponent twice
The player from the top Danish club Aalborg made no appearance, nor did Renars Uscins, who had acted as a solo entertainer in the right back at the World Cup. Both the Hanover native and his representative, Schluroff, had a day in Munich where nothing seemed to work out. It is not for nothing that Gislason calls her field of activity “our problem position”. Nils Lichtlein from Füchse Berlin, who left injured after the Nuremberg game, also couldn’t help.
“We weren’t good enough in attack,” complained Gislason in clear terms: “We throw away too many balls and make too many simple mistakes, which means we concede significantly more goals from the counterattack than we score ourselves.” It’s a recurring problem: If clear opportunities are not taken, the ball is in your own goal a few seconds later. In addition, there are technical errors in the second wave, which directly lead to further goals being conceded while in possession of the ball. “In the early stages we literally invite them,” complained Gislason, “that was a prime example of how not to go into a game.” The national coach knows: His team has a wealth of specialist knowledge about how to make life difficult for yourself.
For the squad nomination in December, Gislason has to deal with the impressions from the Iceland games. Who does he trust to have stable performances in an extremely demanding European Championship tournament (January 15th to February 1st), and who doesn’t? At the beginning of January he brings his national players together for immediate preparation. Before the “nightmare” group waits in Herning, there are two more test matches: against Croatia. This is a similar caliber to Iceland, further setbacks cannot be ruled out.