Handball European Championship: German main round group completely at eye level

After the defeat against France, the DHB team has to look straight ahead at the European Handball Championship. In the main round there are four opponents at eye level. Losing is forbidden – even against opening opponents Iceland.

Looking back at the 30:33 (15:17) defeat against France, experts, national coaches and players quickly agreed: There is a lack of breadth in the squad compared to a world-class team like France. There is a lack of experience, there is a lack of physicality, there is a lack of pressure from the backcourt. And yet it was still their turn – the encounter could have had any outcome until the 50th minute, only then did the French pull away.

It was just nuances that were missing. Here a bad pass to the circle, there a lost duel against the physically strong French circle runners too much. But it wasn’t all bad, the Germans played with a lot of pace, had good goalkeeping and finished their free opportunities fairly consistently. Against a real top team.

One Main round group at eye level

The step to the absolute top of the world, which would probably include the French, especially the Danes and then perhaps the Swedes, has not yet been taken. But not much is missing. And that doesn’t just apply to the Germans, but also to the other four teams that Alfred Gislason’s team has to play against in the main round. None of them are outstanding, but they all have clear strengths and a few flaws.

The Croatians are in good form, have some outstanding individual players, but have lost an important player in Ivan Martinovic and are going into the main round with one point after the draw against Austria. The Austrians are one of the surprise teams of the tournament, leaving the highly favored Spaniards behind. With Nikola Bilyk from Kiel, coach Ales Pajovic has a top player, but there are clear deficits in the depth of the squad.

The Hungarians are a real force physically and their game with their massive pivots is almost impossible to defend. Along with France, the Hungarians are currently the favorites in this group, but in the end the Hungarians also had two razor-thin victories against Serbia and Montenegro in games that could have ended differently.

First opponent Iceland physically Difficulties, but as fast as an arrow

And then there are the Icelanders, whose offensive team led by Aron Palmarsson started the tournament with great praise, but who were physically unable to keep up in the last group game against Hungary, lost 25:33 and, like Germany, started the main round without a point.

In defense, the Icelanders have had enormous problems in terms of physicality so far in the tournament, especially against beefy pivots like Johannes Golla. No other of the twelve main round teams have conceded as many goals as Iceland, although goalkeeper Viktor Hallgrimsson has a decent fag rate. Up front, the team around the Magdeburg axis Omar Ingi Magnusson and Gisli Kristjansson also lost too many balls, the second most among the last twelve nations.

The truth is that Serbia and Montenegro, the other two teams from the Icelandic preliminary group alongside Hungary, are probably a little stronger than, for example, North Macedonia or the Swiss, against whom Germany had to compete. And if the Icelanders manage to win the ball, they counterattack quickly – the retreat behavior, which has been really good for the DHB so far in the tournament, will be put to a tough test. Juri Knorr and others shouldn’t allow themselves to make as many failed risky passes to the circle as they did against France.

Two defeats usually mean: no semi-final

The first duel on Thursday is against Iceland. Historically, a defeat would be fatal for both teams in the race for the semi-finals, with two defeats you can hardly make it to the last four nations. At least that’s how it was at the last European Championship in 2022, when all four semi-finalists only had one defeat. In 2020, the Slovenians made it to the last four with two defeats, the Germans also had two, but missed the semi-finals.

Losing is basically forbidden for the German team, which can even look forward to having a few thousand more fans behind it in Cologne than in Berlin. In addition, a defeat against Iceland, which also has no points, the home country of the national coach, for whom, as he admitted on the ARD microphone, it is of course a very special game, would be a direct pointer in the completely wrong direction.

Where do you rank behind the top teams?

The first main round game is a lot for the DHB: an emotional evening for the national coach, a very important sporty game for two urgently needed points, and a real assessment of the position for the rest of the tournament.

The question that looms over the entire main round for the young German team is: Where do you fit in among the nations that are currently fighting to advance to the world class? If the answer is “at the top”, then the semi-final in this balanced group is absolutely feasible and the Iceland game will give a first indication of that.