The German national team loses the second European Championship group game against Serbia. Only one player shows normal form.
Everyone involved was stunned. Goalkeeper Andreas Wolff shook his head in frustration and Julian Köster buried his face under his jersey. Despite a 17:13 half-time lead, the DHB team surprisingly lost 27:30 against Serbia. Now there is even a threat of elimination in the preliminary round.
The defense was unusually porous. The attack, which had shone with speed and enthusiasm in the first section, suddenly made mistakes after mistakes. A number of scoring opportunities remained unused, and there were also ball losses due to technical errors, so that in the end there was the first ever defeat against Serbia. The handball players from the Balkan Peninsula had only won three European Championships since becoming runners-up in 2012.
“In the second half we didn’t do a good job of defending, but above all we made far too many mistakes up front. We had too many missed throws against a good goalkeeper,” said national coach Gíslason on the ARD microphone: “That’s why we couldn’t win the game.”
Only goalkeeper David Späth, who initially started in goal for Andreas Wolff, was really able to convince the DHB team and therefore received a t-online grade of 2. You can read about which four German players were completely below their potential here or in the photo show above.
For the German team, the focus is now on the game against Spain on Monday evening (8.30 p.m. in the t-online live ticker). “Of course we have to analyze as quickly as possible what we did wrong here today and prepare very well for Spain,” said Gíslason: “It’s clear, we have to win the game against Spain.”
The two-time European champions have not lost a point and had previously beaten Austria 30:25. Only the first two teams reach the main round; the points against the team that also qualified are taken into the second phase of the tournament. The DHB’s goal is to reach the semi-finals.
