However, the Belarusians showed themselves to be solid, remembered their strengths and repeatedly found their outstanding circle player Artsem Karalek, who the German defenders never got defended in isolation. At the break it was finally 17:18. All four goalkeepers used made four saves together – only one was due to the Germans.
It was a target shooting in which the Germans did not seem to work well in terms of assignment to pivot and coordination between block and goalkeeper. “It was difficult. We found it difficult to get into the game in attack and defense and we didn’t get Karalek under control in the first half”, Gislason explained after the game, but gave his inner block of Patrick Wiencek and Johannes Golla an improvement in performance when he “Sent Simon Ernst to warm up” have.
Häfner “outstanding”
At the beginning of the second half, Wolff got into the encounter better and thus not only brought his team into the tempo game, but also to an intermediate sprint. The strong Kai Häfner and Co. showed themselves to be accurate in attack even with the threat of time wasting. After 40 minutes the score was 25:21. “Outstanding Kai”, the national coach acknowledged the performance of his half-right in the timeout taken by the Belarusians, who scored a total of eight goals and was the best scorer with Marcel Schiller. Coming from the Icelander’s mouth it’s almost effusive.
But the Germans could not pull away. Gislason mostly relied on the experienced backcourt with Philipp Weber, Häfner and Julius Kühn – they did a good job, but coach Iouri Chevtsov’s opponent showed that he was likely to be the strongest opponent in the group. In the last ten minutes it was 28:26.
Condition benefits for the Germans
In the final phase, the German defense acted a bit more offensively and forced the Belarusians to go far. They visibly hurt them – in terms of condition, Germany was superior to the opponent from the back, although Gislason only changed a little. The victory should have been even clearer, but Weber and his colleagues missed one or two chances. On Sunday (February 16, 2022) the first match will continue against Austria.
Status: 01/14/2022, 19:34