The German handball players could get really crazy. The number of viewers and ratings for the recently concluded European Championship are dizzyingly high; the market share on the final Sunday was 51 percent. Handball has become a remarkably big thing on social media. People are amazed by the fact that Andreas Wolff can stretch one leg straight up from a standing position and parry throws from close range.
Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that. The extraordinary maturity with which the young German team amazed on the Danish European Championship stage was also evident away from it: in the clarity of how Knorr and Co. deal with victories or defeat in the final and know how to classify the enthusiasm around them. Everyone enjoys the support, no one stands out in this team, where most of the players are only in their early twenties. January is handball month, some people said when they were asked about the almost three-week winter fairy tale.
The community in the sports club
As is often the case on the field, playmaker Knorr went one better in his thoughts and formulations. The twenty-five-year-old knows how to articulate that it’s about more than gold and temporary happiness, as he showed at the end of the final Sunday. His answer to the question about the current enthusiasm for handball is reproduced in full here:
“It’s not about us as handball players. I don’t really care whether it takes place in handball, whether it takes place in basketball or in athletics or in gymnastics or anywhere else. It’s about the fact that sport can generally convey values, which is important for a society.
Team sports can perhaps do a little more. I don’t care whether more children go to play handball or more basketball, hockey or anything else. I believe that sport is generally important. Even in times like these – with the issues that concern world politics – a community in a sports club can convey important values. That should always remain important.”
Mind you: What playmaker Knorr said was not a prepared Sunday speech. It was the spontaneous response of a competitive athlete immediately after losing the European Championship final. What Knorr outlined in forty seconds has an even greater dimension. It’s about respect for and from each other. About people who are committed to a cause, don’t let themselves be defeated, and fight together for success. About rules that are followed.
About sports facilities that are not dilapidated, but invite you to exercise. About school sports lessons that take place and promote the joy of playing. About good and well-paid coaches, about volunteers who take the big picture more seriously than themselves. If Chancellor Merz felt this message in the dressing room and took it with him as a mandate to act, Germany would have won more than silver.
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