German Olympic handball players
Intentional bankruptcy? – Slovenia coach fuels speculation
Slovenia coach Uros Zorman has fuelled speculation that his team lost against Germany on purpose. Photo
© Marcus Brandt/dpa
At the Olympic Games, the German handball players celebrated a big win against Slovenia in the last preliminary round match. Did the opponent help?
After the clear 36:29 of the German handball players against Slovenia at the end of the In the Olympic preliminary round, opposing coach Uros Zorman fueled speculation that his team had deliberately lost. “We didn’t want to repeat the mistake we made in Rio when we met Denmark in the quarter-finals and only had a one percent chance of winning. This time we said we wanted to be smarter and wiser,” said Zorman after the Slovenians’ defeat in the last group match.
The success secured the DHB selection the group victory and will now face European champions and Olympic champions France. If they had beaten Germany, this difficult task would have awaited the Slovenians on Wednesday. Instead, they will face Norway.
“There will certainly be some criticism”
Zorman had left some key players on the bench in the first half. However, this also applied to the German team, where top scorer Renars Uscins and captain Johannes Golla were largely rested. “In the end there will certainly be some criticism, but we know why we are here, why we are working. We decided on this together and have nothing to blame the boys for,” said Zorman.
After a good start with a two-goal lead, the Slovenians held on until 13:13 (20th minute), before the German team pulled ahead by nine goals by half-time. National coach Alfred Gislason said after the match on Sunday: “There was a lot of talk about it: do both teams want to win, do both teams want to lose? Ultimately, both teams came in to win. It’s also almost impossible to go into a game like this and say we only want to play at half strength.”