Despite the defeat against Croatia, the DHB team is in the semi-finals. During the defeat, many players showed mediocre performance, some were completely disappointing.
First the cheers, then the mood dampener: Germany’s handball players reached the semi-finals of their home European Championships, but suffered a bitter defeat at the end of the main round after a festival of missed throws. With the semi-final ticket in their pocket, national coach Alfred Gíslason’s team lost 24:30 (14:13) against Croatia in Cologne and missed their fifth win in their seventh game.
“If you have 24 missed throws, that’s not nice, we wanted to win the game,” said Gíslason on ARD: “But we gave those who didn’t play much a chance to show themselves. Unfortunately, we have an incredible number of clear chances discarded.”
The DHB stars around playmaker Juri Knorr had reason to celebrate even before the throw-off: thanks to double help from France and Iceland, the semi-finals had already been confirmed shortly before the throw-off. Austria and Hungary were no longer able to put the DHB team under pressure in the fight for the semi-finals. The opponent in the semi-finals on Friday is title favorite Denmark.
The best German throwers in front of 19,750 spectators in the sold-out Lanxess Arena were captain Johannes Golla and Sebastian Heymann with four goals each. Because the DHB team carelessly threw away numerous opportunities, they suffered the first tournament defeat for a German team in Cologne’s “Cathedral of Handball” on Wednesday evening.
You can find out how the team around Golla and Heymann performed in the individual rankings and why Knorr didn’t have the best evening here or in the photo show above.