It was another handball drama – with no happy ending for the Germans this time. Sebastian Heymann should have put his free throw into the goal at the end of the playing time over all hands to give the German national team the victory they needed. It failed. Instead, there was a nasty surprise on the scoreboard: 22:22 (11:12) against Austria, a place in the semi-finals is now very far away and can only be achieved with a lot of help from other games.
The fact that there was a draw in Cologne on Saturday evening was thanks to Christoph Steinert, who scored in the final minute. The Germans didn’t fail because of the famous Austrian goalkeeper Constantin Möstl. His counterpart Andreas Wolff also held up great – as the only DHB player besides Rune Dahmke, he seemed to be able to cope with the nervous strain of this knockout game in the main round of the European Championship.
“We can be happy with the point. We played incredibly badly,” said Dahmke, who threw himself into the game, intervened harshly, and took the audience and his own team with him. She urgently needed this energy infusion. “We have to put that aside now, set everything to zero and then give it our all against Hungary,” said Dahmke. Then please have a little better nerves.
Austria cheers frenetically
The best German goalscorer was Juri Knorr with six goals from ten attempts – but overall it was another performance with light and shadow from the 23-year-old. Other top performers like Kai Häfner stood next to him, and captain Johannes Golla also had a bad day.
The outsiders from Austria played as best they could, did everything deliberately slowly, and got to a point that they celebrated frenetically – for the surprise team of the tournament, the path to the semi-finals is now a lot more tangible with four points.
A memorable first half saw the German team go into the dressing room somewhat at a loss. 11:12 – who would have thought? Uncertain, perplexed, failing because of Möstle: only Wolff in the German goal held against it. Free throws were given in turn; In the 23rd minute the outsider led 10:6. It looked really bad what the Germans offered in attack, a slide to this level would not have been thought possible against an opponent of this caliber.
National coach Alfred Gislason had his share of the unpleasant surprise: he entrusted Philipp Weber from Magdeburg with the first 13 minutes. That went wrong. Weber missed, ran into a striker’s foul, took too many steps – none of his actions worked, and Gislason brought on regular playmaker Juri Knorr when the score was 4:3. Things didn’t get better for him at first, on the contrary.
Frank Heike, Cologne Published/Updated: Published/Updated: Published/Updated:
With standing handball and no visible strategy, the Germans stumbled into a four-goal deficit. Eleven Möstl parades resulted in an underground attack rate. Wolff countered that with ten. At the break at 11:12, DHB sports director Axel Kromer said: “With this throwing rate, it’s actually a miracle that we’re only one behind.” It was 35 percent.
And it didn’t get any better. The first main round defeat became apparent when Robert Weber’s seven-meter penalty scored 15:19 in the 43rd minute. Two missed throws by Timo Kastening initially rounded off the German evening.
Things only got a little better very late because Austria’s strength was dwindling because Wolff continued to be a source of support. Julian Köster, Johannes Golla and Juri Knorr brought the Germans to 21:22 before Steinert took heart and saved at least one point.
A discussion about Juri Knorr’s role began in the handball community on Thursday after the narrow win against Iceland. Prompted by some old internationals, the question arose as to how long the Germans’ journey through the tournament could last with so much burden on Knorr’s shoulders. Against Iceland, Knorr played through the front, although he lost many duels.
The demand was more balance, less risk. Or, turning to national coach Gislason, to try out a different playmaker: The squad has an experienced and a young variant in Philipp Weber and Nils Lichtlein. For Gislason, it’s a narrow decision-making corridor between desire and ability, because he only has real trust in his first seven.
The performance on Saturday evening highlighted a completely different dilemma for Gislason: Weber was no help, but a Knorr in this form cannot carry the Germans either. At least he was a little better at the end of this hectic, flawed game, but not good enough to win.