Where disappointment could have been deep, confidence shone in the hustle and bustle of the interview zone on Tuesday evening. A defeat as an encouragement? Maybe not quite like that. But one that the German national handball team related to other ultimately painful duels with France.
Julian Köster’s eyes flashed belligerently as he assessed the 30:33 (15:17) defeat and its consequences. He had seen a “strong fighting performance”, a better performance than a year ago at the World Cup – the Germans had failed in the quarter-finals against France and had no chance in the end. Köster said: “It was absolutely an improvement. We were much better in terms of play.”
France catchy and ripped off
His three goals also helped to provide the 13,500 fans in the arena at Ostbahnhof with exciting evening entertainment – at 27:28 in the 54th minute, anything was still possible in this “final” of European Championship Group A. But there were Only three goals from seven attempts, which is just a decent result for a backcourt player like Köster.
The Gummersbach professional represented what the selection of the German Handball Federation (DHB) was missing: they would have had to push their own level together like never before. The team, which has been playing in this formation for two years, failed to do so.
So once again it was the French who cheered. Grippy, ripped off, focused, with incredible breadth and unimpressed by whistles and boos. “It was fun tonight,” said the famous Nikola Karabatic, who at the age of 39 is now slowly entering the final phase of his career.
“Les Bleus” take two points into the main round in Cologne, while the Germans start without anything in their hand, and from Thursday every two days in Iceland (8.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Handball Championship, on ZDF and on Dyn) meet Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Captain Johannes Golla said: “We will do everything we can to achieve our goal.” With four wins, the DHB team would be in the semi-finals.
“We end up throwing it away a little bit.”
To expect so much from a 23-year-old player like Julian Köster says a lot about the performance of this team. Köster has to throw himself into duels at the front and win them at the back; The same applies to Juri Knorr, who was the top scorer against France with eight goals from 16 attempts.
Johannes Golla played through in this heated, tight, fair classic. This is how these “black holes” arise, as national coach Alfred Gislason calls them; Drops in performance when balls are thrown away for minutes and the gaps at the back become wider and wider. “France were dangerous to score from all positions,” said Köster, “we threw it away a bit in the end.”
When the score went from 27:28 to 27:31 (57th minute), there was a lack of strength, especially in the right back. Kai Häfner was tired and the French shifted their defense in such a way that only he was able to finish with any chance of success. This was bound to fail.
France, however, spared star player Dika Mem for a long time, then brought him on, he heaved the ball into the German goal, just like Kentin Mahé, who had not appeared at all at this European Championship so far – but brilliantly, as so often against the country of his birth. “France saved players for crunch time,” said Golla, “we didn’t have that.”
“No one wanted to be replaced”
The much-vaunted breadth of the German team on this snowy evening was narrowed down to an extremely narrow selection of players – which of course also included Andreas Wolff, who with 16 saves and a “catch rate” of 36 percent was the basis for this head-on -head race created.
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National coach Gislason reacted lightly to questions about his changes, or rather; No substitutions: “The reason for that was that I wanted to win the game.” So Renars Uscins stayed on the bench, although he could have been a welcome change for Häfner in the final minutes, after all Uscins had been in the starting seven and got into the game bitten.
But from Gislason’s point of view, it is something different to trust the young Germans against Switzerland and North Macedonia or against the record world champions. So Köster, Golla and Knorr had to work until they were exhausted, which, strangely enough, they didn’t complain about at all: “No one wanted to be replaced,” said Köster, and Golla, this model athlete who gives everything for the team and sometimes took on three Frenchmen, added : “In a game like this, strength doesn’t matter.”
We can only hope that the energy will return to the bodies and minds of the Germans in the core phase that is now beginning. “The tournament continues,” said Kai Häfner, and it sounded combative.