Future in Hungary: Emily Bölk, previously Thuringian HC
Foto: imago images/Karina Hessland
“Szia” instead of “Hello” and “Kezilabda” instead of “Handball” – five German internationals are moving from the Bundesliga to Hungary this summer. The two goalkeepers Dinah Eckerle and Ann-Cathrin Giegerich, circuit runner Julia Behnke and the back aces Emily Bölk and Alicia Stolle swap a niche existence in Germany for the everyday life of highly paid professionals.
Much to the delight of national coach Henk Groener, who has been encouraging his players to switch to top European clubs since taking office in 2018. “Only professionals can win medals,” Groener told SID: “You can only increase your standing with good performance.” To do this, you need professional conditions that hardly exist in German women’s handball.
The German clubs mostly try in vain to keep up financially, only Borussia Dortmund (Kelly Dulfer) and the two-time champion SG BBM Bietigheim (Stine Jörgensen, Xenia Smits) have international top-class players. The seven-time champion Thuringian HC has to go against it. “We didn’t stand a chance,” says THC trainer Herbert Müller about the change from Bölk and Stolle to the top Hungarian club FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria. Müller calls the financial resources of the Hungarian associations “utopian”.
National coach Groener wants the national team to concentrate exclusively on handball, which is easily possible abroad. “The status is very different, you are perceived very differently as an athlete,” says long-time international goalkeeper Clara Woltering, who won the Champions League twice with Podgorica from Montenegro.
Highly professional conditions such as own sports halls, full-time trainers and physiotherapists offer “more opportunities to practice the sport intensively,” says Clara Woltering. She had been to the training camp with her club from Podgorica five times a year: “You can train whenever you want.” Unthinkable in Germany, where a Bundesliga player is often asked: What do you do for a living?
In any case, Emily Bölk raves about her first impressions in Budapest: “Your own arena, your own changing room, your own gym, everything in a training area.” The opposites could not be more different, so far she has trained at both Buxtehuder SV and Thuringian HC in school gyms.
Bölk wants to “win everything with Budapest, the medium-term goal is to participate in the Champions League final”. Incidentally, how could it be otherwise, has been taking place in Budapest for several years. In front of 11,000 spectators. SID/nd
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