The fact that Germany is suddenly on the verge of being eliminated from the European Championship after the 27:30 defeat against Serbia was of course not just due to Alfred Gislason’s time-out breakdown. But there were further mistakes, from the team, but also from the national coach – an analysis.
Surprises in the starting lineup
Gislason delivered the first surprise of the evening with his starting lineup. When it came to the groundbreaking duel for a place in the main round, Rune Dahmke, for example, was the man on the field at the throw-off, who the national coach had left out of the matchday squad in the opening win against Austria (30:27). So he wasn’t even good enough for the top 16. It wasn’t Andreas Wolff, who was outstanding against Team Austria, who started in goal, but rather David Späth. The background to these measures was that Gislason wanted to get as many of his squad as possible “into the tournament”. However, the Serbs clearly thwarted this request. And when things got tight, Dahmke or Späth sat outside again.
Knorr played well – but not enough
Juri Knorr was also allowed to start this time after his banishment from the bench against Austria (he only came on after 22 minutes) – and did an outstanding job. The Aalborg player took responsibility and made mistakes, but scored four times in the first half and shone with spectacular assists. In the Sportschau interview, Knorr criticized the fact that Gislason suddenly put him on the bench in the most important phase of the game in the second half: “Of course it’s boiling inside you when you sit out there.” And further: “I don’t fully understand it either” He complained that other colleagues “Play through 60 minutes”.
Grgic punished like at the World Cup
The bank was once again the main place of residence for Markos Grgic. After his poor performance against Austria, he announced compensation against the Serbs in an ARD interview. But the backcourt shooter, who scored 296 goals in the last Bundesliga season even more often than world handball player Mathias Gidsel, had to watch the entire first half. When the game ended, Gislason suddenly remembered Grgic in the 43rd minute. He came off the bench cold – and then didn’t find his way back into the game. He knows the scenario from last year: Gislason didn’t forgive him for any mistakes at the 2025 World Cup either.
Coach “steals” his own goal
Just at the moment when Juri Knorr pushed the ball over the line to make it 26:26, his coach called the timeout buzzer because he was looking at the video cube on the ceiling of the hall instead of the field – the goal didn’t count. After this strange breakdown, nothing worked for the DHB team. Gislason later showed greatness and said on ARD: “My mistake, of course that’s my fault..”
Unnecessary rush and wild choice of litter
Andreas Wolff had a good overview of what was going wrong in front of him for 42 minutes from outside and then the last 18 in goal. Instead of being in the lead and playing out the attacks carefully, after the 17:13 half-time lead, there was suddenly total hectic activity. There were throws from a long distance or after too little preparation time that Serbia keeper Dejan Milosavlev was even able to hold on to – the maximum penalty in handball. Wolff was brutally open in the Sportschau interview: “We completely lost our attack concept in the second half. We no longer played with the necessary pressure to score, but instead took unprepared and individual shots.” The Germans aimed at the Serbian goal from nine or more meters 22 times – twelve of these throws failed.
Bad passes, ball losses, Seven meter mishaps
At the break, Germany was still leading 17:13, but then lost the second round with a crash of 10:17. In addition to the wild selection of shots, this was also a result of unnecessary ball losses, blatant bad passes, clumsy striker fouls and a seven-meter penalty from Lukas Zerbe that was placed well over the goal in the decisive phase. Julian Köster angry: “We collapse completely and simply throw the balls away.” Renars Uscins complained about this in the Sportschau interview: “We don’t manage to make any better use of our dominance in the first round. Even then we make one or two mistakes too many.” Now it’s about putting a stop to the bankruptcy, working through it and correcting the mistakes against Spain. However, the to-do list is quite long.
