Against Serbia, the DHB selection will have to prepare for a hot dance in the second game of the European Handball Championship (Saturday from 8:15 p.m. live here in the stream and in the audio report). And lots of tough duels. At least the statistics suggest that it could still be tight.
Uros Borzas shouted his frustration. The Serbian left back had believed in it until the end, but when the final whistle blew in his Serbs’ opening game against Spain, the scoreboard read what he saw as a disappointing 27:29. After a 15:19 score in the first half, in which the Serbs had major problems against the Iberians, there was a brief surprise in the air during the second half.
Serbia has only won three European Championships since 2012
The defense was better, the goalkeepers around Berlin’s Dejan Milosavljev also held one or two balls after a weak first half and Serbia’s Spanish coach Raul Gonzalez repeatedly resorted to the seventh outfield player who had substituted for the goalkeeper. However, he played this variant differently than, for example, Iker Romero, Austria’s national coach, tried it against Germany. Instead of two pivots, Serbia played with four backcourt players, which caused assignment problems for the otherwise strong Spanish defense. The Serbs made a total of ten seven-meter throws through their breakthroughs into the gaps – but they only converted seven.
In the end that was once again not enough. Since Serbia became European runner-up in 2012, there have only been three wins out of 22 European Championship games. And that despite the fact that the Serbian team was actually seen as an unpleasant opponent in almost every one of these tournaments with outside chances of making it to the knockout rounds. As with this one, in which the Serbs now have to beat Germany and Austria to advance. Berlin’s Mijajlo Marsenic also appeared frustrated on the ARD microphone after the game: “It’s the fifth or sixth time in a row that we’ve played a game like this with so many technical errors in a competition like this and to end up losing by just two is so painful.”
Serbia plays “not quite as Spanish”
Gonzalez has been in office as a coach since the summer – with Austria’s Romero and Spain’s Jordi Ribera, the DHB team will meet a total of three Iberian trainers in this preliminary round. Most recently, Gonzalez coached the star ensemble of Paris Saint-Germain for several years – this experience may be the reason why Germany’s assistant coach Erik Wudtke prefers the Serbian style of play “not quite so Spanish” compared to the other two group opponents. According to Wudtke, with a compact, “experienced and physically strong, enthusiastic and willing to fight” Inside the block around Veszprem’s Dragan Pechmalbec and Marsenic, the Germans can expect some tough duels.
The Serbs received five time penalties against Spain, which is the highest in the tournament so far. It seems entirely possible that this will be exceeded on Saturday if you listen to Marsenic: “We have to play even stronger against Germany, they play very physically. Every backcourt player in Germany is an incredible machine.”
Probably a close fight (again) in the “engine room”
There will probably be a few rattles in Herning’s “engine room” at the weekend, because the German defense was also in excellent physical shape against Austria. The danger that the Serbs pose from the backcourt is likely to be a slightly different challenge for the DHB defense than it was against Austria, who primarily scored through breakthroughs or the outside positions and only scored two goals from long-range throws in 14 attempts.
Immediately after the defeat against Spain, Marsenic didn’t seem to be quite as optimistic about his chances of success against the DHB selection: “With what I [bei den Deutschen] “When I saw it twice against Croatia, I didn’t see any weaknesses.” Maybe he and his colleagues noticed a few against Austria. At the 2023 World Cup, the Serbs had Germany on the verge of defeat; Alfred Gislason’s team prevailed 34:33. It seems likely that it will be close this time too, because even though Serbia couldn’t win its last four European Championship games in a row, it was always close: 27:29, 29:30, 27:28, 27:28.
