Personally, Marko Grgic had a false start in the European Handball Championship. But he wants to put that aside, remain courageous – and give an immediate answer against Serbia on Saturday evening (8.30 p.m., live on Erste and in the full audio report on sportschau.de). Will the national coach let him?
The processing took a little longer. Video study was also part of it when Marko Grgic reflected on his personal performance after the 30:27 win against Austria. However, it wasn’t handball videos that he said he watched until two in the morning. “It was some nonsense on TikTok, some pointless social media stuff. I just had to get out of the bubble and completely distract myself“, said the backfield sniper on Friday, refreshingly openly.
Only one goal against Austria
He didn’t really shoot well on Thursday evening. National coach Alfred Gislason had surprisingly called him into the starting line-up, but his first actions went wrong: bad throw, bad pass, bad throw, and in the end there was just one goal. Although he was still allowed to take a seven-meter penalty – which he also missed.
Gislason took him off the field in the middle of the first half and brought on Gummersbach’s European Championship debutant Miro Schluroff, who contributed four goals and also completely convinced Grgic: “He did it much better than me”the Flensburg resident admitted to the Sportschau: “Personally, I was very dissatisfied with my performance. I have to improve, but the nice thing about handball is: It goes on straight away, next training, next game, next chance to do better again.”
The move to Flensburg was handled well
Everyone in the German team knows that he can do that. In the Bundesliga he mastered the move from Eisenach to the world handball club Flensburg brilliantly; he is in sixth place in the top scorers list with 114 goals – by the way, 36 goals and 22 places ahead of Schluroff.
The question now is what will happen next for Grgic in this tournament. He was also one of the hopefuls at the World Cup last year, and at the end of the season he was even top scorer in the Bundesliga ahead of the Danish world handball player Mathias Gidsel. But he had an extremely difficult time with Gislason and was punished by the coach with long bench times for mistakes and too wild a choice of throws.
New competition with Schluroff
Now, with a year more experience and improved defense, his stock has risen, but he suddenly has new competition in Schluroff. How does he deal with it?
Grgic: “After my performance against Austria, I pondered and thought about what I can and must do better. It’s not like I’m expected to score ten goals per game, but of course it can be much better and I want and will remain courageous. If I have to go out, that’s okay, it’s about the team. And it’s not a solution to sulk on the bench. Just keep going at full speed – then everything can look different again against Serbia.”
Encouragement from assistant coach Wudtke
This is exactly the attitude that Gislason and assistant coach Erik Wudtke advise him to take, who already found encouraging words for Grgic during the messed up first game. Wudtke says about the sports show: “I didn’t think Marko’s choice of shots was all that wrong, even if he didn’t go in that much. You don’t just have to judge him by goals, he also made some very good passes and helped the team with them. But it’s completely clear to me that he’ll score more again, so he shouldn’t worry about that.”
