If there was an award for the Coach fox of the weekend, this would go to Alfred Gislason. On Saturday, the handball national coach had criticized his player Juri Knorr for his bad passes with surprising clarity, on Sunday Knorr immediately showed his best performance so far in the German selection. He scored 13 goals in the 33:31 friendly win against Iceland, including eight successful penalty kicks in nine attempts. After the game, Knorr had to work an extra shift signing autographs.
Such a public scolding can go wrong – but obviously not with Juri Knorr. The 22-year-old played even more confidently than he already does. Gislason must have guessed that, he found that Knorr had “returned very well” after the criticism. This is how the coach fox speaks.
Other trainers might have left Knorr out in the next game. You can see from the bank how your colleagues are doing it better – that too can have a learning effect. Only this is not really an option for Gislason. He needs Knorr for the start of the World Cup on Friday against Qatar (6 p.m., live ticker on SZ.de), so he played again from the first minute in the second Iceland game. And Gislason doesn’t just need his middleman: he actually needs his entire first seven in good form to do well at the World Cup – at least to reach the quarter-finals. If the two friendlies against Iceland have shown anything, it’s that: “The first suit is right. The second isn’t.” Gislason repeated this sentence several times.
“We lack the breadth in the squad, but we knew that beforehand,” says Gislason
The first suit consists of goalkeeper Andreas Wolff, line runner and captain Johannes Golla, center man Knorr, half-players Julian Köster and Kai Häfner and wingers Lukas Mertens and Patrick Groetzki. Gislason can also bring the half-left Philipp Weber and the half-right Christoph Steinert relatively safely, as well as circle runner Jannick Kohlbacher. You can keep the level of the first seven. After that, the 18-man squad will be rather thin.
While Gislason happily exchanged in the first test in Bremen (30:31 against Iceland) and thus accepted a break in the second half, in the second leg in Hanover he relied almost exclusively on the forces mentioned, who gained an advantage over their colleagues have worked out. These colleagues, from left winger Rune Dahmke to middleman Luca Witzke to half-left Paul Drux or circle runner Tim Zechel, only got very few or no minutes of action. The second goalkeeper Joel Birlehm also brought Gislason only briefly. He found the game difficult, so Wolff was allowed back into the goal.
“We lack the breadth of the squad,” Gislason admitted openly. But he already knew that beforehand. It is a vote of confidence in his regular cast that the Icelander is currently creating. Or, if you want to put it negatively: a small vote of no confidence to everyone else.
The players often say that a special team spirit was created at the Corona EM 2022
Gislason will not make the mistake of not keeping his substitutes happy shortly before the start of the World Cup. At almost every handball tournament, at some point people become important in the team who previously did not expect long deployment times, be it due to injuries to the seeded players or positive corona tests. Or who would have thought before the EM 2022 in Hungary and Slovakia that someone like the then second division professional Julian Köster would get so much playing time? Today he is one of the established forces. “It’s nice that a formation has been found,” said Captain Golla, “but all the other players will also be important at the tournament.”
As is well known, the German team was shaken up like no other at the European Championship: Due to the large outbreak of corona in the squad, Gislason had to replace more than half the team during the tournament and nominate ten players. The players often say that a special team spirit developed during this time, because no matter who came from home, he integrated seamlessly. Even players who had actually canceled for the EM jumped in when needed. A year later, the atmosphere in the team is still “outstanding”, Gislason states: “There is no room for egos. Everyone gives their all for the team.”
In this atmosphere, he can afford to let individual players sit on the bench for more than 60 minutes in the last test before the World Cup. Or is that just another trick by the experienced Icelander? Gislason would be particularly pleased if a player from the “second suit” felt so goaded by his words that he scored 13 goals at the start of the World Cup against Qatar on Friday.