EHe can still look “very angry”, says Andy Schmid and laughs. “He” is his trainer, Martin Schwalb. The 57-year-old handball teacher won the Champions League with the missing HSV Hamburg, the championship trophy. Schwalb has just turned the Rhein-Neckar Löwen back into the top team it was between 2015 and 2017: Since the 31:31 in the spectacular top game against SG Flensburg-Handewitt, the Mannheim championship leaders have been in the Bundesliga. Director Andy Schmid, who has been with the club for ten years and is the head of the team, says about the coach: “His approach has brought us back lightness and looseness. In every workout. He shows us looseness. The lion’s DNA is recognizable in the game. “
The age-mild swallow? However, that is only part of the truth. One that also appeases public expectations. The competitor slumbers inside. And that’s why Martin Schwalb looked at his leader grimly and was “pissed off”, said Schmid, because he caused a seven meter throw at the last second, which Flensburg used to equalize.
Schwalb is a chapter in the current success story after it just didn’t work out with his predecessor in the dugout, Kristján Andrésson. There have also been courageous decisions made by the management around boss Jennifer Kettemann.
An important man in the success story of the Lions: Trainer Martin Schwalb (right)
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Image: dpa
When it became clear who the lions would sign in the summer and later when there were injuries early in the season, Schmid breathed a sigh of relief. “The management gave the team an important sign that they want to be successful in sport. And that in certainly not easy times, ”says Schmid.
The 37-year-old Swiss does not want to come to terms with the fact that Kiel and Flensburg have hurried since 2018. Schmid says: “With Albin Lagergren, Mait Patrail and Lukas Nilsson, we brought players in before the season started who knew what was important. We used to hand over players to Kiel and Flensburg. Now we have brought in good ones and thus improved quality. ”When both runners got injured, Rafael Baena came back. Then the Lions took Nikolas Katsigiannis after the goalkeepers Andreas Palicka and Mikael Appelgren were canceled. The quick reactions on the transfer market helped not to fall behind hopelessly at the beginning of the season. Schmid says: “We weren’t the only ones affected by injuries and failures. At first we had our difficulties with that. Now we accept the situation and are happy to be able to play. “
Before the game this Tuesday at TSV Hannover-Burgdorf (8.15 p.m. on Sky), the Lions are at the front with 19: 3 points and have shown the well-known speed handball. As nice as it is to lead the league, Schmid misses the audience so much: “It’s just something different whether there are 10,000 spectators or ten drummers,” he says, “at first it was pretty tough – and strange: We have cheered over our goals, but there was no reaction from the stands. “
He and the team are now in the tunnel. And the privilege that Schmid feels to be allowed to play at all leads to the greatest possible risk avoidance: “I already feel in the bubble and limit my contacts completely because every positive test could cost us points,” says Schmid and adds : “The tests and the quarantine rules are tedious.”
Still a strange atmosphere: Striker Gensheimer celebrates a goal, but there is no reaction from the stands.
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Image: dpa
Finally, the solidarity in the league, which was still so strong in the summer, crumbled; there have been statements from some clubs aimed primarily at their own gain. Schmid thinks this is human – and yet annoying: “There will be distortion of competition in these times. Obstructive quarantine rules, injuries, home games without spectators. You can’t prevent that at all! But the criticism shouldn’t come from handball. “
Just as the Lions had the disadvantage of playing in front of empty ranks in Mannheim on Sunday and Flensburg in the second leg in the spring maybe in front of filled ones, the THW is going with its spectatorless home game against Schmid’s team on December 23 – and possibly with the second leg in Mannheim Spectators. For him, with all responsibility for the big picture, it is also about maximum success with the Rhein-Neckar Löwen. “Whether Corona or not: I want to win games,” says Andy Schmid, “and as long as the season is running, we want to collect points like squirrels.” it would be if we save our sport and come first in the end. “
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