After the bitter cup defeat against Magdeburg, the handball players of THW Kiel are challenged in the Champions League on Thursday (6.45 p.m.). The first real home game of the year is against Poland’s champions Kielce.
Top handball players like to talk about dancing at all three weddings. For THW Kiel there are only two since Sunday. After 70 hard-fought minutes, the German record champions narrowly lost out to Magdeburg in the quarter-finals of the DHB Cup, which was held in Hamburg. Backcourt star Sander Sagosen, who will only be playing in the THW jersey for a few more months, was defiant afterwards: “We still have two chances of winning a title.” Namely in the Bundesliga and in the Champions League.
Livelihood worries at Kielce
The premier class duel with Kielce, which is characterized by acute existential worries – after the departure of a main sponsor at the end of last year, there is a risk of insolvency and a sell-out – is the first of four games that will end the group phase by the beginning of March.
So far, the Kielers are in fourth place in Group B with 10:10 points – a whopping eight points behind the Polish opponents in second place. For the THW, it is no longer a matter of going directly into the quarter-finals, but only of a good starting position in order to play third or fourth in the round of 16 against the sixth or fifth place in the parallel relay.
Kielce comes with 13 World Cup participants
The burden is currently a big topic again. Because just a few days after the World Cup, club handball was back. Sagosen, who finished sixth with Norway, said: “The body isn’t the problem at all. It’s mentally flat. Especially when you haven’t achieved the goal you’re aiming for at a World Cup.”
It doesn’t look much different at Kielce: There are no fewer than 13 World Cup participants in the squad, including some French and Spanish medal winners as well as the German international Andreas Wolff, who guarded the THW goal between 2016 and 2019. Already on Friday Kielce played again in the Polish league, won 40:26 in Piotrkow Trybunalski despite a bumpy journey due to the Polish winter chaos and rested some top performers.
Weinhold fit again
The THW reported a positive personal situation on Sunday: Steffen Weinhold returned to the field after his knee injury – a few weeks earlier than expected. Sven Ehrig (torn cruciate ligament) and Karl Wallinius (knee operation) will be out for a longer time.
At the beginning of October, THW lost 37:40 in Kielce. “We played well, but lost,” said coach Filip Jicha at the time, who is now optimistic despite all the adversities: “My players are professionals and therefore mentally very strong.”
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Sports current | 09.02.2023 | 8:17 p.m
