Robert Weber knew it. The Austrians’ massive pivot had already explained how the tournament would end after his team’s first qualifying game in Hanover. There will be “a final against Germany,” said Weber on ORF. And the winner? Austria.
Now this final actually exists, and the German team got themselves into this predicament with a soberingly weak performance, especially in the first half, in the second group game against Croatia. After the 30:33 (10:16) the Croatians are through and can look forward to taking part in the Olympics. The Germans must continue to tremble.
If national coach Alfred Gislason’s team wins against their neighbors on Sunday (2:10 p.m., ARD), they will also travel to Paris. Otherwise, Austria will celebrate a historic triumph, as Weber predicted. Even a draw would be enough because Austria lost to Croatia by six goals, Germany “only” by three. But who wants to calculate with that?
Against the Croatians, the German team got off to a textbook start: “How not to start a handball game.” Five minutes had been played, the first eight attacks, and the score was 0:4. The German throwers repeatedly failed because of the Croatian goalkeeper Dominik Kuzmanović, with whom they had already had big problems at the European Championships. A seven-meter shot from Lukas Zerbe landed on the inside post and jumped out of the danger zone from there. After nine minutes, Gislason took the first time out.
“We lost the game in the first ten minutes,” says Rune Dahmke
The Icelander, who is not only playing for participation in the Olympics but also for his job as national coach, saw that there was a lack of almost everything that was necessary to win such an important game. Left winger Rune Dahmke described the performance in this phase as “simply inadequate. We lost the game in the first ten minutes.”
A nightmare game developed: Croatia managed everything, especially the goalkeeper and the shooters from the right back, and the Germans managed almost nothing. It was difficult to recapitulate all the technical errors in the attacking game. Marian Michalczik threw a ball to the left wing that landed in the stands. Renars Uscins bounced the ball onto Juri Knorr’s foot. With each action, the Croatians’ chests continued to swell and the Germans’ shoulders sank a few millimeters further down. The strong defense from the European Championship? Wobbled considerably. The offensive around Juri Knorr and Julian Köster? At times it seemed clearly overplayed.
“A first half like that shouldn’t happen to us,” captain Johannes Golla later criticized in clear words. “We panicked,” said Knorr. At halftime the German team was down by six goals and the hall direction played “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC. Not inappropriate. The Croatian fans in the hall were already celebrating.
“Everyone will be on fire,” promises goalkeeper Wolff for the game against Austria
A lightning start at the start of the second half gave at least some hope back. Uscins now scored reliably (in the end he was once again the best German shooter with eight goals), the Croatians committed a striker’s foul, and Zerbe reduced the score to four goals with a seven-meter penalty. The B line-up of Michalczik and Sebastian Heymann scored in the backcourt. Knorr and Köster, however, sat on the bench for a long time. And suddenly goalkeeper Wolff caught a free ball from the right winger. Gislason praised the team as being “really good” in this phase.
Not everything worked in the German game, but at least the operating temperature was right. The deficit was only two goals (21:23), the hall in Hanover was noisy, but the Croatians remained stable. When Heymann had to leave the field with a straight red card in the final phase after a foul against Domagoj Duvnjak, the German team finally lost the courage it would have needed to turn the game around. The Croats had a lively party on the field.
So now Austria. An all-or-nothing game against their neighbors, against whom they had only managed a draw in the group stage at the European Championships in January. “Everyone will burn,” promised goalkeeper Wolff. Knorr said: “It will be a final. With a win we’ll be through. It’s actually a nice constellation.” But probably not for the faint of heart.