The German national team is in the final of the women’s handball world championship after a win against France. National coach Markus Gaugisch’s selection won the semi-final in Rotterdam against defending champions France sensationally with 29:23 (15:12) and will play for the greatest success in German women’s handball in 32 years on Sunday. In front of around 5,000 spectators, captain Antje Döll was the best German thrower with nine goals.
“I can’t say exactly what just happened. Phenomenal,” said captain Antje Döll after the game. “It was a great, great game.” Gaugisch is already looking ahead: “We are in the final. Now we want to win it too.”
The DHB team won all seven previous games. Last year, the German handball players lost to the French at the Summer Olympics in France. The French women’s team also won the two test matches in the spring.
Strength on defense
Reaching the semi-finals is already the greatest success for the German handball players since their World Cup bronze medal in 2007. In the second semi-final game in the evening, Olympic champions and top favorites Norway and the co-hosts Netherlands meet.
“I can’t take it anymore. It was 60 minutes of pure struggle,” said Viola Leuchter. Before the game, she would have “flip the bird” at this outcome. Gaugisch said: “You can see how cool they are and how confident they are in their strength: the defense. The whole week has been fantastic, you can’t get out of that feeling.”
France became restless
The women’s team owed their victory to their defensive performance, which made things difficult for the French. Döll scored five times in the first half alone, Filter even saved a seven-meter penalty and Vogel and Leuchter threw the balls into the goal from the backcourt at over 80 kilometers per hour. Even when the German team lost their four-goal lead due to some technical errors, the team didn’t collapse. In addition to Döll, goalkeeper Katharina Filter and Emily Vogel (5 goals) in particular showed a strong performance.
The French women became more and more restless and acted more and more harshly. Time was running out for the German team in this game. At 23:18 in the 48th minute the lead grew to five goals for the first time. Germany could no longer take this lead.
Thanks to the semi-final success, the team secured a record bonus: silver is rewarded with 300,000 euros by the association, and if the team wins the title, they will receive an amount of 425,000 euros.
