At the European Hockey Championships in Mönchengladbach, the German women meet Belgium in the semi-finals with an impeccable record: 14 goals, no goals conceded. “Of course it’s cool, but we can’t buy anything against Belgium,” said captain Nike Lorenz.
The analysis of her goalkeeper Julia Sonntag was a little milder: “We showed that we can be patient, even if we don’t score goals directly.” That gives confidence for the rest of the tournament.
The German team needs this patience on Thursday evening in the hockey stadium against the second in group A (from 8 p.m. in the live stream at the sports show). Because the Belgians are compact and defend their own goal with a lot of physical effort. The first real challenge in the home tournament awaits the “Danas” in the semi-finals.
Schedule and Results, Ladies Arrow Right Schedule and Results, Men Arrow Right
But that doesn’t make Sunday nervous: “We are aware that this will be a different game now. We have to deliver, we’ve prepared for that.” So far, the selection of the German Hockey Association (DHB) had managed to develop an intoxicating joy of playing in each of the three games.
Germany a title favorite? – “This is cottage cheese”
Youngsters like strikers Jette Fleschütz and Pauline Heinz were able to boost their self-confidence with their preliminary round goals, while the youngsters Stine Kurz and Linnea Weidemann held their ground without any problems when the experienced central defender Viktoria Huse had to take a deep breath.
The fact that his team is the title favorite after their appearances in the group phase is “Quark. The preliminary round games have little to do with the decider games. There is still a lot of room for improvement,” said national coach Valentin Altenburg. For the semi-finals, Germany need a “great hour”. “But we’ve been training for that all the time and we’re happy that it’s being asked about now.”
German men’s team with shaky performance
While the German hockey women consistently delivered their performance in the preliminary round, the men’s performance varied quite a bit in the group phase. In all three games, the world champion showed different halves – a line could not be seen. “That’s good, then the opponents don’t know where we stand either,” said captain Mats Grambusch after the 4-1 win against France and grinned.
In the last group game, coach André Henning’s team had to make it through to the semi-finals with a draw or a win. While the “Honamas” showed their quality against the Netherlands, the otherwise very self-confident team seemed a bit nervous at the beginning of the last group game against outsiders France, but pulled themselves together in the second half.
Still “a lot done right”
But Henning didn’t see any reason to worry at all: “In the end we won the group with a good goal difference and seven points,” said Henning: “We’ve obviously done a lot very well there.” However, the DHB team cannot afford such a first half against semi-final opponent England, striker Thies Prinz knows: “There are not five minutes where you can see that you can get in”, and immediately pushed a challenge afterwards: “There you can rely on it, we’ve been there from the start.”
The Germans can expect intense duels and a strong defense against the English team – there is also an open score: In January, the team from the United Kingdom led 2-0 in the quarter-finals of the World Cup with three minutes to go. But with a furious final spurt, the “Honamas” managed to equalize and then win in the penalty shootout.
“England hurt us a lot at the World Cup, we didn’t find the right approach,” said Henning, but preferred to “concentrate on us and our qualities. I’m looking forward to floodlights, a full hut – it’s going to be emotional”.
