Handball European Championship: Germany despite bankruptcy in the semi-finals

Despite defeat in the semi-finals: Germany’s handball players are playing for a medal at the home European Championships and can continue to hope for a winter fairy tale. However, national coach Alfred Gislason’s team suffered a sobering 24:30 (14:13) defeat at the end of the main round against Croatia on Wednesday evening and failed to gain further self-confidence for the semi-final clash against world champions and top favorites Denmark. The other semi-final round game will be played on Friday by Olympic champions France and defending champions Sweden.

In front of 19,750 fans in the once again sold-out Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Sebastian Heymann and Johannes Golla were the best throwers with four goals each for the DHB selection, which last reached the semi-finals of a major tournament at the home World Cup five years ago. At that time, the German team, which secured its ticket to the 2025 World Cup through partial success, came away empty-handed in fourth place.

This time it will finally be the first precious metal since 2016, when Germany won European Championship gold and Olympic bronze. “Denmark is an outstanding team, but they will still put pressure on themselves. With this great audience behind them, anything is possible,” said DHB sports director Axel Kromer on ARD.

From the European Championship triumph eight years ago, goalkeeper Andreas Wolff, left winger Rune Dahmke, backcourt player Kai Häfner and pivot Jannik Kohlbacher are still there. “The first catch is there, but they want to reach for the stars,” said ex-national player Dominik Klein about the DHB team’s ambitions.

As they were warming up, national coach Alfred Gislason’s protégés, with whom the German Handball Association would like to extend their contract, which expires in the summer, as quickly as possible after the European Championships, were euphorically celebrated by the fans for reaching their first major European Championship milestone.

This was made possible by the mistakes of the competition. First Austria had to admit defeat against Iceland with 24:26, then Hungary lost to record world champions France with 32:35. Nevertheless, Gislason announced: “We want to keep our style of play and our rhythm.”

Accordingly, the 64-year-old Icelander sent his strongest formation onto the floor at the beginning. And that immediately created a good atmosphere in the stands. Wolff was immediately at operating temperature between the posts. The veteran parried five shots from the Croatians in the initial phase, which enabled the DHB selection to take a quick 5:3 lead.

But then a lack of concentration crept in at the end. In the middle of the first half, the European Championship hosts were behind 6:8 after seven minutes without a goal of their own. Shortly afterwards, Gislason brought in the second back row with Renars Uscins, Philipp Weber and Sebastian Heymann, who, like against Hungary, performed strongly and played a large part in the DHB team’s narrow half-time lead with three goals.

After the change, the proliferation of opportunities became even worse. The German shooters repeatedly failed because of Croatia’s goalkeeper Dominik Kuzmanovic. David Späth, who came for Wolff, also showed with a few saves that he is in the tournament. But the people in front of him missed too many shots.

Ten minutes before the end, the German team was behind 19:25. That pissed Gislason off. “If you can’t concentrate, you have to report and go out,” complained the national coach. However, things didn’t get better. In the end there was the first defeat in the Cologne handball temple, where Germany had never lost in 14 international matches.