The goal behind Johannes Bitter had to fear that it would fall victim to the German handball player. Of course, the goalkeeper does not come to Tokyo for nothing and immediately destroys the facilities of the Olympic host, but now it wobbled after he had pushed it hard. A seven-meter from Spain’s Aleix Gómez had rushed past Bitter’s leg, impulsive anger spread. However, that was gone faster than the anger 20 minutes later, after the final siren: The 38-year-old was really seething.
Losing as tightly as the handball players on Saturday afternoon always hurts. The pain is even worse when it happens at the start of the Olympics – and against European champions Spain. The 27:28 (13:12) on the scoreboard in the Yoyogi National Stadium annoyed all German players, but Bitter had other reasons. He thought that he had seen a manipulation of the ball. “Those are things that you don’t want to see in handball,” he said on ZDF, the ball was made wet by a Spaniard on purpose, “so that we have a disadvantage and make a technical mistake.” What would of course be outrageous cannot be proven at the moment.
The German attack is particularly variable
There was a lot of potential for excitement in this game: It worked, it went off, like a drive on Tokyo’s city highway. Alfred Gislason’s team was in the front after 20 minutes with 10: 7, then things got tricky and finally two whistles from the referees heated the minds at the end. One and a half minutes before the end, when the score was 27:27, a striker foul was first punished by left winger Marcel Schiller, and a little later by backcourt player Steffen Weinhold. Neither of them was guilty of anything gross. “I have to watch it again on video, but I don’t think either was a forward foul,” said Gislason. Philipp Weber expressed it more drastically with reference to the Spaniards: “Now they can’t go to sleep from laughing because they have won.”
Always in the turmoil: Steffen Weinhold likes to be energetic – and successful – in the opposing defense (pictured). In one of the last scenes of the game, however, he was whistled against a striker foul.
(Photo: Swen Pförtner / dpa)
The DHB team had actually wanted to get back what it had forgotten in January at the World Cup in Egypt: the victory against these Spaniards, who they were already on the verge of defeat. But then the game slipped out of their own hands, this time they felt “a bit ripped off,” said Weber, who had previously announced that he would have to sort out his feelings first. He added: “We might have just had to close the bag beforehand. ” The famous sack that actually contained a lot of valuable things if you peeked in during the half-time break.
Bitter fended off the projectiles and the defense around Hendrik Pekeler picked up more and more tracks when it came to dangerous attacks. The attack was particularly variable: sometimes the gates fell over right winger Timo Kastening, sometimes Paul Drux slipped through the dense defense of the Spaniards with astonishing elegance, the interplay with the runners Pekeler and Johannes Golla worked wonderfully. That was a whole creative department that Gislason had founded. “We have implemented a lot of what we set out to do,” said Weinhold.
And then something happened that often happens to Germans and is perhaps a sign of a particularly high level of empathy: if someone stumbles, the whole troop will soon sway. More and more technical errors crept in, badly placed throws on goal by Gonzalo Perez de Vargas; Bad passes, even from Bitter. “In between we may have one or two little things that we haven’t done well enough,” said Weinhold, “where we can’t let the final situation of the game decide.” The fact that the team then started the second half with a double number was not the best prerequisite for gaining a clear lead from the 13:12 half-time point.
“We deserved to win,” said national coach Gislason
While it was getting more and more tricky for the German team in the attack – Spain was now covering more offensively – Gislason also pulled the 3: 2: 1 defense with Finn Lemke out of the tactic box. And the 2.10 meter tall defensive specialist cheered so adrenalized after every block that he carried his team away with him. “After the change we get better and better into the game and then play the last 20 minutes overall very well,” said the national coach, although the susceptibility to errors in the attack continued to run through the game. And they still lack the quick and easy goals – but this time they didn’t fail.
The German handball players have to compete against Argentina on Monday, at 11 a.m. in the morning. Gislason found it difficult to look ahead in the hall, the frustration at the missed opportunity to start the tournament with two points was too deep. “It’s been a disappointing start,” he said, “we deserve to win.”