With all these upheavals, there is only one detail – SG Flensburg-Handewitt has also changed the outfitter to a Danish sports goods manufacturer, who now supplies the jerseys and goods. Although it fits very well to let a company north of the border dress you.
Because the Flensburg team will play the Danish card more clearly again in the coming season: the coach is now called Nicolej Krickau, 36, and comes from the GOG club in Gudme near Svendborg on the island of Funen. He brings along Danish internationals, Simon Pytlick for the backcourt and line player Lukas Jörgensen to stabilize the recently weak defence. Pytlick chased half of handball Europe.
Flensburg favorite for some champions
Stability is the keyword here, because SG Flensburg has lost its identity in the past two seasons. Consistency, planning security, family values: This resulted in two championships and two second places between 2018 and 2021. In the end, however, this recipe did not deliver any wholesome food at all. After a weak 2021/22 season, the SG management turned everything upside down in spring when all goals were lost again. The consequences are strange, even groundbreaking by local standards: as a surprise bag between high-flying plans and justified concerns, the gaming community is now starting an XXL season that will only end with the Olympic Games next summer.
New coach, new sports director, a fairly renovated team that should play faster handball than under Maik Machulla: everything seems possible from the hoped-for second place to a season of searching and finding. The competition, however, already sees great things emerging at SG: “For me, Flensburg is the championship favorite with the momentum of the new coach and the great transfers,” said Bennet Wiegert, coach of the Champions League winner SC Magdeburg.
This should succeed with three other newcomers that Flensburg wants to introduce to its fans in the first home game on August 24th against HSV; among them the king transfer Kay Smits, whom the SG loosened from the SCM before his leap in performance. Hopes are similar to those of the Slovenian defense giant Blaz Blagotinsek. But it would be more important than placements to offer handball again that inspires the fans, which above all means playing every game with full passion.
More stability: Simon Pytlick : Image: picture alliance / Eibner press photo
Recently there were significant traces of smoke on the inside. The dismissal of Machulla, how his assistant Mark Bult was then snubbed, then the non-continued employment of idol Lars Christiansen: The B grades of those responsible for managing director Holger Glandorf and advisory board chairman Boy Meesenburg were bad. Criticism rained down from all sides. The SG family was broken.
A lot rained down on the brittle managing director in his first year in charge. The fact that he signed two top-class players in Pytlick and Smits and dared to do something innovative with Krickau went unnoticed. In order to finance the whole thing, the most important shareholders have been asked to dig a little deeper into their wallets.
Now a thick band-aid called Ljubomir Vranjes is sticking to the wound – although one would have to say: a small, very well-trained band-aid. It was a coup to lure the long-time SG coach and Champions League winner from 2014 to the fjord as head of sports. Vranjes, 50, 1.66 meters, with his empathy and internationality, with wit and whistle, is one that the SG needs. Coach Krickau had wanted an experienced man at his side and now got him. Vranjes insists that he is not squinting at the coaching position – which, after disappointments at all stations following Flensburg since 2017, seems believable. Nothing less is expected of Krickau and Vranjes than to give the SG an unmistakable DNA again.
Michael Reinsch Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 31 Daniel Theweleit, Frankfurt Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 4 Frank Heike, Hamburg Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 8
Once hurled through at 1400 rpm, that’s how they feel in Handball Flensburg. Many screws were turned, old habits like the training camp in Juelsminde, Denmark, were cut off; instead, preparation began in mid-July at a camp in Lübeck. In the meantime, promising first tests have been played against the Danish champions GOG. But a new jersey and a different place for the first passes and first throws are just small things in view of the upheavals at SG Flensburg: it has rarely been so exciting to follow this club into a new season.
