AWhen Paul Drux rightly received a time penalty in the 51st minute, he joked around with the Norwegian referee Havard Kleven on the way to the bench. That was the tone of the game – a better friendly game in which nobody wanted to hurt themselves anymore. And that as part of a world championship. The German national handball team won their second main round match against Brazil on Saturday evening in the new capital of Egypt 31:24. It was a meaningless success.
It was already clear beforehand that it wasn’t about too much: since Hungarians had defeated the Poles earlier in the evening, the prospects of the first selection of the German Handball Federation (DHB) for the quarter-finals had already been nullified. From the “German” main round group 1, Spain and Hungary go into the round of the last eight on Wednesday. The Germans bring the world tournament in Egypt to an end on Monday evening against Poland with no prospect of medals – ninth place would now be the best possible placement. Two years ago at the World Cup in Germany and Denmark, the Germans finished fourth with national coach Christian Prokop.
Prokop’s successor Alfred Gislason thus missed the goal of the knockout round proclaimed by the DHB; The sticking point was the narrow, late defeat against Hungary in the last group game. In the course of the tournament, Gislason’s players had never been able to cover up the weaknesses in defense – here the Kiel professionals Hendrik Pekeler and Patrick Wiencek were sorely missed. For both of them, a handball World Cup in times of the pandemic seemed too risky for private reasons. They stay with their families. “We missed a lot in defense in order to survive against world-class teams,” said Gislason on Saturday evening on “ZDF”, “but especially in attack you can see that the team has developed significantly forward.”
Few changes
It was the same against Brazil. Gislason let his regular seven accumulate in the fifth game of this World Cup and changed little overall. He wanted to show how important the game was to him. In the back area, Philipp Weber was a clever director and was also dangerous (five goals). He usually used his fellow men Julius Kühn (5) and Kai Häfner (4) wisely. About 6: 2 and 8: 6, the Germans took off at 16:12 until the break. Time and again Johannes Golla made the necessary space in the circle; With seven goals, the 23-year-old from Flensburg had the best haul of the Germans, who countered the safe victory over 24:21 in the 48th minute and 29:22 in the 54th.
Johannes Bitter showed himself at his best in goal; in the end, the third goalkeeper Silvio Heinevetter was allowed to play for a few minutes. The German number one Andreas Wolff did not include Gislason in the squad; also a reaction to his poor performance against Hungary and Spain. Captain Uwe Gensheimer (4 goals) also made a convincing appearance. Overall, however, at this tournament he also suffered from getting very few face-offs. “We have brought in a lot of new things in a short time,” said the left winger, “these things fit very well in attack, in defense we have to tackle more aggressively, then we move closer to the top of the world.”
That must also succeed if the great goal of the Olympic Games is to be achieved. In mid-March, Gislason’s team will meet Sweden, Slovenia and Algeria in Berlin. Two of the participants will qualify for the Tokyo Games. However, after the impressions of Cairo, the DHB team will not go into the next tournament as favorites.
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