Tears of joy flowed minutes before the end. Viola Leuchter, the huge left-hander, had made it 27:23 in the World Cup semi-finals in Rotterdam with a breakthrough 120 seconds before the final siren, when Emily Vogel became aware of the historic moment with a sideways glance at her captain Antje Döll. “Antje was in tears,” said Vogel after the final whistle. “I knew then that nothing could go wrong.”
The Germans dethroned world champions France with a sensational 29:23 victory. There it was, the first medal for the German handball players since World Cup bronze in 2007. On Sunday (5.30 p.m., ARD) they have the historic chance against the top favorites Norway to win the second World Cup title for the German Handball Association after 1993.
“Simply awesome,” said Vogel, putting on a broad smile as if she were advertising toothpaste. The mixture of anger, passion, but also relief makes this German team strong.
Vogel’s joy seemed somehow unreal to fans who have followed her for a long time. The 27-year-old, who made her national team debut at the age of 18 and was known as the “prodigy of German women’s handball” during the last home World Cup in 2017. (HE DOES) celebrated, symbolized the collective failure in recent years. She had traveled to a major tournament ten times. Ten times, despite hopes, were never enough for anything countable.
“Emmy has been chasing this medal for so long”
Dramatic failures in the national team accompanied Vogel’s path, such as missing the Olympic qualification in 2019 or the defeat in the 2023 World Cup quarter-finals against Sweden, when the team did not score a single goal in the first fourteen minutes. Vogel, the great promise, became the face of failure.
Vogel’s club career is extremely successful. Trained in Buxtehude, she won the German Cup with the Thüringer HC and in 2020 moved to the strong Hungarian league to Ferencváros Budapest, the paradise of women’s handball. There, too, she won the championship and cup and reached the final of the Champions League in 2023. As a professional, she earns very well in Budapest, while national players like Jenny Behrend have to work a mini-job in Germany to finance their lives.
The fact that Vogel was blamed for the German failure also has to do with her family. Her mother Andrea Bölk, who is still very opinionated today, was part of the team that won the last major title in Oslo in 1993. The daughter wanted to do the same. This built up pressure and obviously inhibited Vogel when she played for the national team. She seemed hectic and disappointed in many tournaments. “Now a dream is coming true,” the mother told the sports information service. “Emmy has been chasing this medal for so long.”
