Of course, Johannes Sellin agreed with his employer’s plan. When HC Erlangen promoted the 2016 European champion from assistant coach to the manager’s chair to replace the hapless Hartmut Mayerhoffer in order to avoid the threat of relegation, it was with the prospect of building a new team in the coming season. The new Bundesliga top scorer was to be at the heart of this facelift: Manuel Zehnder. “I assumed he would be there, but that didn’t work out,” Sellin had to admit.
After a mediocre year in Erlangen, the playmaker was loaned to ThSV Eisenach last season. And it was only at the Thuringian league rivals that the 24-year-old made his breakthrough under his former coach Misha Kaufmann, with whom he had already worked at the Swiss first division club Aarau. The Swiss international not only scored the most goals in the world’s best handball league, he was also instrumental in ensuring that Eisenach, who were considered the first team to be relegated, had far fewer problems with staying in the league than his employer HC Erlangen.
He had prematurely extended Zehnder’s contract until 2026, so now Sellin was supposed to build a new team around him. Everything seemed fine until Zehnder, who is not exactly lacking in self-confidence, felt called to higher tasks and filed a lawsuit against his contract with HCE.
But the Nuremberg Regional Labor Court dismissed the lawsuit, and an out-of-court settlement failed due to Erlangen’s demands for a transfer fee from Eisenach. Zehnder was given the option of initiating main proceedings, but this would take over half a year, meaning the Bundesliga top scorer would be on ice for at least half the season – not a pleasant prospect for the club and the player. The HCE not only quickly found a replacement, signing Norwegian international Sander Överjordet to take over the team’s control center – but also a buyer for the recalcitrant playmaker: Zehnder is moving to the German champions and Champions League winners of the previous season, SC Magdeburg. There he will replace the Swede Felix Claar, who injured his foot at the Olympic Games and will be out injured for a long time.
A satisfactory solution has now been found for almost all parties involved – except for ThSV Eisenach
A satisfactory solution for everyone involved – except for ThSV Eisenach. The Thuringians would have liked to keep their best player, especially fellow countryman Kaufmann, who is considered the Swiss coach’s mentor. Magdeburg, however, not only paid the transfer fee, which is said to be in the mid-six-figure range, but also helped the Erlangen team with another personnel matter. Because Nico Büdel, who was supposed to be responsible for game planning alongside Överjordet, had to undergo an operation due to a loose joint in his knee and will be out for at least two months, the Erlangen team had to find another player for the center back – which has now also been extremely satisfactory.
Under the leadership of HCE President Carsten Bissel and mediated by Magdeburg, former Slovenian national player Marko Bezjak will move from Croatian first division club RK Nexe Nasice to the Middle Franconian club. Bezjak is considered the foster son of SCM coach Bennet Wiegert, who was also involved in the transfer, and played for the Saxony-Anhalt team for ten years before moving to Croatia last season. Although Bezjak recently turned 38, he is still in excellent physical condition, which he demonstrated in the European League, among other things. Bezjak has won all the major club titles with Magdeburg: the Champions League, the German championship and cup, the European League and the Intercontinental Cup.
In addition, the physical and defensively strong Slovenian’s game is similar to that of his colleague Büdel, and due to his extensive experience at the highest level of play, Bezjak should be relatively easy to integrate into the Erlangen game. Together with Överjordet, who is ten years younger, Sellin can look forward to a powerful duo in the playmaker position even without Manuel Zehnder. Of course, from now on they will have to work hard on fine-tuning. The training camp in Leipzig with test matches against the local league rivals and the Polish Champions League club Wisla Plock comes at a very convenient time.
The results so far have not been very impressive, especially the recent 25:29 against second division team HSC Coburg. Before that, the Erlangen champions had lost to Magdeburg (26:32) and to the Swiss champions Schaffhausen (28:31), but Sellin recalled that he was not involved in the scheduling: “The games were set for a long time, but I planned the preparation for the season, not for the test games.”
In addition, the two Olympic participants Christoph Steinert and the Slovenian goalkeeper Klemen Ferlin were missing, and the tough training sessions of the past few days had also left their mark: “We ran out of energy in the second half.” Sellin focused primarily on defensive work, which worked mainly in the first half, but overall the coach was not dissatisfied. In addition to playmaker Överjordet, who was part of the Norwegian Olympic squad but was not used as a substitute, and showed his qualities in game management, the new Algerian national goalkeeper Khalifa Ghedbane impressed. Sellin was also not dissatisfied with the first appearances of U21 national player Marek Nissen, who came from second division club Lübbecke, and Polish national center Maciej Gebala, who moved from league rivals Leipzig.
Nevertheless, the new players still need time to get used to the new situation, and Sellin has done 80 percent of the work in terms of athletics. In order to be “perfectly on point” in terms of playing for the start of the season, the coach has just under three weeks, says Sellin. That is his new plan.