Casketball European Championship
Dirk Nowitzki follows the start of the DBB women
19.06.2025 – 10:27 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
At the start of the DBB women in the European Championship, Dirk Nowitzki even traveled on his birthday. The team rewarded him with a win.
With an impressive start to the European home championship, Germany’s basketball players have set a clear signal-and at the same time made Dirk Nowitzki a special gift. The team of national coach Lisa Thomaidis prevailed in the first group game in Hamburg with 89:76 (44:27) against Sweden and thus took an important step towards Ko round in Piraeus.
In order to secure the progress, Germany has to take at least second place in the group. The next opponent is Spain – the fellow favorite prevailed confidently with 85:70 (48:25) against Great Britain. Throwing off is on Friday at 8 p.m. (Magenta Sport).
A special moment was the visit of Dirk Nowitzki, who celebrated his 47th birthday on Thursday. Shortly before the start of the game, the former NBA star entered the hall in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, symbolically pressed the buzzer at the start of the tournament and personally welcomed the German team. Then he took a seat in the first row and followed the game carefully.
The German team also seemed motivated by Nowitzki’s presence. Right from the start, the hosts made an energetic 16: 2 run. Luisa Geiselsöder in particular convinced early, although like Leonie Fiebich, she had just joined the team shortly before the tournament start and had missed a large part of the preparation. Geiselsöder collected eight points in the first quarter. Fiebich met two important threesome – the German team went into the first break with 27:16.
Despite the ongoing WNBA season, both players traveled specifically to be part of the first European Championship games on German soil. However, Satou and Nyara Sabally are not here. Captain Marie Gülich is also missing due to injury – she had contracted a cruciate ligament tear.
However, the failures hardly affected Sweden. At halftime, Germany led with 17 points. Nowitzki was visibly impressed by the team’s concentrated performance.
After the change of sides, it became temporarily narrower: Sweden came up to six points. But again it was Fiebich who brought important tranquility into German game with two threes. In the last section, Geiselsöder and Frieda Bühner finally secured the deserved opening.