Not only did Juri Knorr undergo the stress test, but also his jersey. Whenever the ball came into his hands, one of the men in blue was immediately there – ready to do anything to keep the German director from moving. If nothing else, that made it a complicated game for the German national handball team. As against France, they had to expend a lot of energy to get into position to throw, a game that strained and strained in every respect.
Also on the nerves of the 19,750 spectators in the sold-out Cologne Arena. There was high tension until the last few minutes, and it wasn’t until Andreas Wolff saved his second seven-meter penalty within two minutes in the 28th minute when the score was 24:23 that the big release came. In the end, not least thanks to the goalkeeper, who made a total of 16 saves, the score was 26:24 against national coach Alfred Gislason’s compatriots.
Austria comes out trumps again
It was a thrilling, grueling start to the Cologne main round, in which the German team is aiming for four wins from four games to reach the semi-finals of the home European Championship. The next opponents are the neighbors from Austria on Saturday (8.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Handball Championship and on ARD).
And they are the surprise team of this tournament so far. After leaving Spain behind in the preliminary round, they defeated the previously sovereign Hungarians in a thrilling finish 30:29 in the first main round game. In the second game of the evening, France beat Croatia 34:32.
Cologne, as is well known, is the ultimate German handball destination. The move here from Berlin was intended to give the national players another boost in terms of atmosphere. “From my point of view, nothing beats Cologne,” Gislason said.
And nobody beats a German team in Cologne: a national team had never lost a competitive game here, in 2007 the final three steps to the World Cup title were taken here, and in 2019 they made it to the semi-finals, which was then lost in Hamburg. And this time? In Cologne, in any case, things would continue until the end. But the first step was tough.
Tough start
Julian Köster lives in Cologne, but he has never played here. The Gummersbach Bundesliga professional approached this game very actively, as he has often done recently. However, with varying success, in the first attack he played one pass too many, in the second his throw failed to hit the goalkeeper, and in the third he found Rune Dahmke, who was playing for Lukas Mertens on the left wing, in the circle – the first German goal to make it 1: 2.
It was a tough start, solid defense was the trump card, especially for the Icelanders. The fact that Knorr’s circles in particular were significantly disrupted meant a lot – perhaps too much – responsibility for Köster.
Starting with Johannes Golla’s goal to make it 3:5, the Germans seemed to get going and went on a 4:0 run that put them 7:5 ahead. Martin Hanne contributed the last two goals, but after that he also had three missed shots – a reflection of a changeable first half in which Gislason varied a lot, including with the boys in the team, but didn’t find enough to be reliable. One constant was one thing in particular: Wolff in goal, who was a crucial help to his team in the first half with eight saves, including a seven-meter penalty.
The evening began with irritation for the Icelanders – embarrassingly, the anthem was played incorrectly for them. Afterwards, the Bundesliga selection with a strong Magdeburg influence (which, however, was not that significant) proved to be a tough and equal opponent.
They had had a surprisingly poor start to the tournament and had even left the preliminary round with a 25:33 defeat against Hungary. But the national coach had suspected it: they wouldn’t present themselves like that against Germany, and after 22 minutes Iceland were back on level terms at 7:7. Sebastian Heymann’s power from the backcourt gave the Germans another two-goal lead, of which only a meager one remained at the halftime buzzer: 11:10.
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After the break, the Germans initially defended even more consistently, and Wolff gave his team the assist twice to take the lead with three goals, but there were too many mistakes in the attack, a problem that the Germans continued to have in the course of the second half plagued more intensely.
In the 20th minute, the Icelanders were ahead again for the first time since the opening phase (18:19) – a critical moment from which Gislason’s team, supported by the audience, escaped. And in a certain way it was a fitting punchline that Köster set the frenetically applauded finale.