Gold dream shattered, silver won! Germany’s handball players missed the crowning glory of their European Championship winter fairy tale. The triumph of national coach Alfred Gislason’s team ended on Sunday evening in the hell of Herning, despite a crazy parade show by goalkeeper Andreas Wolff and a rousing team performance against Olympic champions and world champions Denmark. The 27:34 (16:18) defeat in an epic and highly intense final was painful, but by winning the silver medal the German team celebrated its greatest success at a European Championships since winning the title ten years ago.
The DHB selection offered the now three-time champion a self-sacrificing fight in front of 15,000 noisy spectators in the sold-out Jyske Bank Boxen, including Chancellor Friedrich Merz, his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen and Denmark’s Queen Mary. In the end, she had to admit defeat to the high-speed handball of the world’s best handball team.
Wolff and his teammates kept the game even until 27:29 (55th), but at the end Denmark turned things up with their outstanding individual players. In the final phase, after a strenuous tournament with nine games, the strength also dwindled, especially since defense specialist Tom Kiesler was shown the red card early on after a serious foul on world handball player Mathias Gidsel. The best German goalscorers were playmaker Juri Knorr, captain Johannes Golla and Marko Grgic with five goals each.
Denmark, which had already won the Olympic final against Germany (39:26) a year and a half ago, ended its 14-year European Championship curse and became the first host to win a European Championship since 2002. In addition, the Scandinavians became the second team after France (2010) to complete the Golden Slam of handball and, after winning Olympic and World Cup gold, also secured the European Championship title.
For Germany, which still has to wait for its first competitive win against Denmark since 2016, the final in Herning marks the end of two and a half intense weeks, which should give the young team plenty of tailwind despite the final defeat.
Captain Johannes Golla and Co. not only impressed with six wins, including successes against Spain, France and Croatia. They also won the fifth European Championship medal for a DHB selection. In addition to the two titles in 2004 and 2016, a German team won bronze in 1998 and silver in 2002. To celebrate the medals again, the association invited the team to burgers and beer at Cafe HumleChok in Silkeborg on Sunday evening.
Coach Gislason was combative despite the short-term absence of pivot Julius Fischer (infection). “We have to put up an outstanding defense and have a very good goalkeeping performance,” said the DHB coach immediately before kick-off on ZDF: “We are a complete outsider, without a doubt. But we want to win the game, so we have to play a perfect game.” Even before the game, Chancellor Merz attested that the German team had had a “fantastic tournament” and was looking forward to “a totally exciting game.”
That’s what he got. The German team impressed with a lot of passion from the first second and cooled down the simmering cauldron with Knorr’s first lead 5:4 (10th). When Kiesler had to go out a little later and the Danes made it 10:7 after a quarter of an hour thanks to a Pytlick brace, there was a brief threat of trouble. But Golla scored eight minutes later to make it 13:13. “Boys, we have them exactly where we want them,” praised Gislason during the time-out: “It’s outstanding up front, Juri, outstanding attack. We play very well across the board. The retreat is incredibly important.”
But the Danes stayed on the trigger. And it was above all keeper Wolff, who was allowed to play from the start, in contrast to the lost main round game against the Danes (26:31), that the half-time deficit of two goals was small. “Playing a final against the hosts in Denmark is really cool. We have to make the hall whistle even more,” said Franz Semper during the break.
The Danes continued to push the pace. Although Golla equalized at 19:19 (35th), Germany repeatedly made bad throws offensively against Denmark goalkeeper Kevin Möller. At first it didn’t help much that Wolff was now finding his way into the game better and keeping his team in the game with some spectacular saves. At 22:26 (45th), the deficit grew to four goals for the first time.
Gislason reacted, the Icelander used the variant with a seventh field player in attack for the first time in the tournament. This had an effect: Germany crawled back to 24:26 (51′), Wolff was almost insurmountable in this phase. Jannik Kohlbacher was shown red late after a serious foul (57′), but the game was over by then.
