Knorr “felt fooled” against France

Knorr with a gala performance against France

“I felt pretty fooled”

Juri Knorr was the decisive man against France and freed himself from the form crisis. He said he was unimpressed by it, but his coaches and teammates raved.

Nils Kögler reports from Herning

“I’m not beaming!”: Juri Knorr simply didn’t feel like being in an unconditional good mood as he diligently walked past the waiting journalists in the Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning. The German playmaker brusquely dismissed a reporter’s comment as a false observation. The 25-year-old certainly had reason to smile.

Knorr contributed a total of ten goals to the German national handball team’s 38:34 victory in the last European Championship main round game against defending champions France and thus lifted his team into the semi-finals. “I’m just happy,” Knorr admitted, but when asked what made the difference, he said very modestly: “Our team.”

The knot had finally broken for him. Especially in the main round so far, Knorr had not been able to show his class to any extent and, after several weak performances, he had used his usual harsh self-criticism. “It just annoys me,” he said, among other things, about his achievements. Against France he was suddenly the team’s outstanding man, hitting all of his first ten throws, among other things.

However, Knorr didn’t lose himself in self-praise: “I actually felt pretty fooled,” he said, “because three games nothing works and suddenly every cucumber throw goes in.”

But he still showed some joy: “Of course, when you play like I did the last two or three games, you’re not happy and you think a lot,” he said. But he told himself that pondering was of no use and that he just had to carry on. “I haven’t forgotten handball and I trust that a phase like this will pass,” he said, describing his approach. “As it always has been in recent years. Sometimes it’s longer, sometimes it’s shorter and I was lucky that it was shorter and ended today. I’m just happy about that.”

Consequently, Knorr was voted player of the game after the game. “It was almost a little cheesy,” he said of the moment of honor. “My father was standing pretty much in front of me and I saw my girlfriend somewhere on the video cube.”