Alfred Gislason had to laugh, of course he had anticipated the question about the quarter-finals and he easily fended it off: “It’s always bad when you start to calculate, it was always wrong. We just want to win against Holland, everything else is perfect unimportant.” He will withdraw to his hotel room to study videos, prepare for the Dutch and then convey this to his team.
So far it has worked extremely well, with the preparation for the respective opponent. The most recent example was the 39-19 thrashing of Argentina. The Icelander said in a relaxed manner that his team had started the important first main round game with two mistakes. His team is now so solid that such mishaps leave no impression. “The defense was outstanding,” said Gislason. “And when you have a goalkeeping performance of almost 50 percent, from both goalkeepers, that’s the kind of result that comes about.”
In the first half it was Andreas Wolff who with his first action fended off a completely free throw from the circle. That was the start of a series of first class saves of all kinds. Whether free from the circle, free from the outside, throws from the backcourt, Wolff unnerved the Argentine attackers in a way that left its mark.
Even Argentina’s leader Diego Simonet, thinker, driver and top scorer for the South Americans, a handball Messi so to speak, was soon impressed by the class of the German goalkeeper. The 33-year-old, who plays for French top club Montpellier and has already won the Champions League, scored the first two goals for his team, but neither Wolff nor Joel Birlehm allowed another one. Rather, Simonet got an unusually large number of pauses for thought on the bench for his standards.
Desperation is spreading on the Argentine bench
Like all Argentinian players, he was unable to counter the attacking vortex of their opponents. No matter what the selection of the German Handball Federation (DHB) undertook, it was almost always crowned with success. Juri Knorr skilfully pulled the strings in the backcourt, staged his teammates, found the circle or scored himself. The pivots Johannes Golla and Jannik Kohlbacher could not be stopped by the physically inferior Argentine defenders anyway. And the wing players Patrick Groetzki and Lukas Mertens stormed the goal of the unfortunate keeper Juan Manuel Bar time and time again, or completed finely played moves.
Hit rate of 81 percent for the German team – also because Lukas Mertens, like five of his teammates, did not fail against Argentina.
(Photo: Marco Wolf/wolf-sportfoto/Imago)
The favorite led 24:11 at halftime, the game was decided long ago. On the Argentinian bench, desperation spread because of the opponent’s simply not letting up. No matter what coach Guillermo Milano tried, whether with two pivots or a seventh field player – his plans simply didn’t work out in view of the highly concentrated German defense.
Even the national coach later admitted that this performance surprised him a little, he had never seen such a flawless performance from a national team. And he has never given an instruction like in the last time-out just before half-time. With two code words, he first gave the tactical framework, then he added: “Play what you want.” On the one hand, this is an expression of the great relationship of trust between the coach and the players, and on the other hand his way of working: “I encourage the boys to communicate a lot.” Gislason is an advocate of a flat hierarchy and thus gives responsibility to his players.
He was particularly pleased with the second half. “That the lads who came in cold after the break continued to do the same and performed well in attack and defence,” said Gislason. “It makes me proud and helps us to build our self-confidence.” The DHB selection only allowed the dismayed Argentines eight goals in the second round, in attack there was an unreal hit rate of 81 percent after the win. In Groetzki, Golla, Mertens, Rune Dahmke, Christoph Steinert and Paul Drux, six players who scored 22 goals together, three more than the opponent in total, remained without a single failed attempt. “We really overran the Argentines, 24 goals in the first half, that’s crazy, you have to get it right first,” said left winger Lukas Mertens, “that was really outstanding.”
Gislason was happy about “an extremely well-established first formation that gets along very well” and when he sees “that the players who play less and better come in, it gives me a feeling of relaxation as a coach and makes me proud the guys”. So now the Dutch are waiting on Saturday (8.30 p.m.), against whom the Icelander warns despite all the looseness: “They have gotten better and better in recent years, have an extremely fast back row with many players from the Bundesliga and international top clubs. The are just good.”
Another win would almost certainly mean entry into the quarterfinals. But Gislason didn’t say anything about that, he just smiled.