Wolff madness in the Cologne Arena: An Andreas Wolff in world-class form saved the German handball players a victory at the start of the main round. The goalkeeper secured the 26:24 (11:10) win against Iceland with numerous important saves.
The Germans got off to an optimal start in the main round of the European Championships in their “living room”, the Cologne Arena. There has never been a defeat for the German national team in Cologne. This time it was really close – the German handball players showed their weakest tournament performance to date.
“I think this game brought the team an incredible amount. It was very difficult, but they mastered it,” said Alfred Gislason after the game on ZDF. The almost 19,750 fans in the sold-out hall celebrated one man in particular: Andreas Wolff and his fantastic parades.
Main round, 1st matchday arrow right
Dahmke and Steinert from the start
In contrast to the preliminary round games, the German team got off to a bumpy start. Gislason caused a little surprise in his starting seven. Kieler Rune Dahmke started on the left wing in place of Lukas Mertens, who had been very impressive in the tournament so far. Christoph Steinert was also allowed to start on his 34th birthday.
The Germans felt the pressure of having to win immediately. Many technical errors in the first few minutes, Gislason’s team was 3:5 behind after ten minutes.
World class Wolff
It was just a good thing that goalkeeper Andreas Wolff was in fine form again. Several class parades from him and almost 20,000 people in the Cologne Arena were immediately there. When the young Martin Hanne scored twice in a row to make it 7:5 and Wolff defused the second penalty, the game seemed to tip in favor of the Germans.
But it remained hard work. Wolff continued to do well and kept his team in the game because the German offensive was weakening. Juri Knorr was also unable to prevail as hoped. The Icelandic inner block with Ymir Gislason and Arnar Arnasson mainly concentrated and worked him hard.
Gislason changes earlier
Unlike in the France game, Gislason made an early substitution and also brought in his youngsters Justus Fischer and Renras Uscins, but the conversion of opportunities remained weak. “We’re starting to do everything through the middle again. That was actually a learning from the France game, to go more to the outside. But we’re continuing to go through the middle,” criticized ARD expert Dominik Klein in the Sportschau audio stream.
But because Wolff showed world class with a catch rate of 44 percent (seven out of 18 saves in the first half), Germany went into the break with a narrow lead. “These parades – you can push them together as an inside block because you know they’re holding the balls from the outside,” said Klein, a former left winger himself.
Knorr shows nerves
In the second half, the young German team showed nerves and gave away many balls carelessly. Kohlbacher missed the ball and Dahmke missed a great chance. Playmaker Juri Knorr played several wild, risky passes – and also missed two seven meters. Germany simply couldn’t pull away. However, Wolff’s counterpart Viktor Hallgrimsson also had a great day. The Icelanders equalized again at 16:16 (44th) and even took the lead a little later at 19:18 (50th).
When Lukas Mertens put the Germans back in the lead in the 54th minute, Knorr also encouraged the fans in the arena with gesticulating arms. Now the hall was full in crunch time. Chants of “Andi Wolff” helped the German goalkeeper save two crucial seven-meter penalties – in the 57th minute against Viggó Kristjánsson and in the 59th minute against Omar Ingi Magnússon. Julian Köster put the lid on it shortly before the end – Germany breathed a sigh of relief with two points in the main round.
The Germans’ next opponent is Austria on Saturday (3:1 points), followed by duels against Hungary (2:2) on Monday and Croatia (1:3) on Wednesday (all at 8:30 p.m.). Only the top two in the group of six advance to the semi-finals. The leader is France (4-0), which had previously defeated Croatia.
