Berlin (dpa) – Former world champion Christian Schwarzer worries about the importance of the national team in the face of numerous cancellations for the upcoming European championship.
“From my point of view it would be very bad if the national handball team loses its appeal,” said the 52-year-old on the Internet portal “Sport1”.
If that is the case, then you have to question a whole generation. “I speak for myself and can also speak for other players like Markus Baur or Stefan Kretzschmar: We were always happy to meet at the courses and to play these tournaments,” emphasized the former world-class runner.
Ex-national coach Heiner Brand and Olympic runner-up Stefan Kretzschmar recently criticized the cancellations. “I have to expect that everybody’s ultimate goal is to play in the national team,” said world champion coach Brand. And the 48-year-old Kretzschmar had stated that he sometimes had the feeling “that some people immediately associate a national team invitation with the issue of stress”.
Paul Drux (not fit after injury) and Juri Knorr (not vaccinated against Corona) as well as Fabian Wiede, Patrick Groetzki and Hendrik Pekeler (all private reasons) had canceled their participation for the EM from January 13th to 30th in Hungary and Slovakia . Schwarzer now found that these were decisions made by the players for a wide variety of reasons. “You should accept it that way,” said the 2007 world champion, who played 319 international matches.
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