Germany’s handball players started their immediate World Cup preparations without a quartet around Olympic heroes Julian Köster and Renars Uscins.
Backcourt player Julian Köster, like the left-handers Renars Uscins, Franz Semper and Nils Lichtlein, was missing from the meeting in the Park-Hotel Hagenbeck in snow-covered Hamburg on Friday for health reasons. The players are expected to join the team in the coming days.
Twelve days before the start of the World Cup against Poland, national coach Alfred Gislason initially welcomed 13 players from his 18-man squad. Some players had to struggle with the weather in Hamburg; the snowfall in the Hanseatic city caused a bit of travel chaos.
“I saw one or two cars on the left and right that collided a bit. But everything was fine for us,” left winger Rune Dahmke reported to the Sport Information Service (SID) after his short journey from Kiel, how his teammates survived He also paid no damages for the trip to Hamburg. “I’m doing well, I’m really up for it. The week’s vacation was really good, now my head is clear and my body is fresh – so we can get started.”
Heymann and Kohlbacher are missing from the 2025 Handball World Cup
On Thursday, the German Handball Association (DHB) announced that Sebastian Heymann and Jannik Kohlbacher had dropped out of the tournament; backcourt player Lukas Stutzke (TSV Hannover-Burgdorf) and pivot Tim Zechel (SC Magdeburg) replaced the Rhein-Neckar Löwen duo. By arrangement, Zechel will only travel to the team on Saturday.
The two failures are of course particularly painful because it means new game variations for Alfred. That means we will have to set priorities again in training. That wasn’t planned, but we have full trust and confidence that the two of them now have moved up, will take on the role,” said national team manager Benjamin Chatton in the ZDF lunchtime magazine on Friday.
The final tough tests will take place on January 9th and 11th in Flensburg and Hamburg against Brazil, before Germany starts the World Cup against Poland on January 15th (8:30 p.m.) in Herning, Denmark. Other opponents in the preliminary round are Switzerland (January 17th/8:30 p.m.) and the Czech Republic (January 19th/6:00 p.m.). The best three teams in the group of four reach the main round, which Germany would also complete in Herning.