At the Handball World Cup, the German team is already leaving in the quarter-finals. The result is bitter – now it is important not to lose your nerves.
Nils Kögler reports from Oslo
Minimal goal reached, but nothing more: The German national handball team was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. The defeat against Portugal symbolically stood for the performance of the DHB selection in the entire tournament: weak initial phase, followed by a comeback in half two.
Only with the difference that it was not enough for a win against the strong Portuguese in the end. The disappointment is great. Because after the Olympic silver last year, all handball Germany dreamed of the next medal. It would have been the first World Cup medal in 18 years. However, the team failed due to itself and due to the fact that they could never achieve their maximum level of performance at any time. Therefore, nobody should be satisfied with this tournament at the DHB. Nevertheless, if you lose your nerves, make a mistake.
Of course, after the semi-finals at home in January last year and the Olympic silver from last summer, expectations were high. In the term of national coach Alfred Gislason, which has been in office since 2020, the team continuously performed better with every tournament. The World Cup in Oslo is a step backwards.
But you shouldn’t overestimate that. The top of the world in handball is extremely close together. This can be seen not least in the main round of top nations such as Norway, Sweden and Spain at this World Cup.
The German team is also a young. At just 24 years old, for example, Juri Knorr and Julian Köster are already one of the seasoned players. There are also some younger players. How much the young team had to deal with the expectations could be seen on the 22 -year -old Renārs Uščins. There is nothing nice to talk: Uščins played a bad tournament. The back room player was miles away from his Olympic form, when he almost alone threw the DHB team alone to silver.
Uščins simply wanted too much. Weak litter quotas like his four hits in twelve attempts against Portugal walked through the entire World Cup. But do you really want to expect a 22-year-old in every tournament at world level? That would be wrong. Fluctuations are part of this age. That is part of his learning curve.
At least in this tournament, she also demonstrated that the German team can still develop. For example, the quality is to increase again in the decisive game phases and still choose numerous games for themselves.
With an experienced national coach like Alfred Gislason, the team has a leader who knows how to deal with defeats. He and his team will also draw the right conclusions from this setback. As bitter as this tournament was, the young German team should understand it as an opportunity and learn from it.