Switzerland is considered a title candidate at the Ice Hockey World Championship after their previous appearances. Opponents in the quarter-finals Germany are counting on the past duels on Thursday (3:20 p.m., live ticker at sportschau.de) in the Latvian capital Riga – especially penalty shooter Marcel Noebels.
The whole thing was a bit like ice dancing, only the music was missing. Marcel Noebels with shirt number 92 first curved the disc in a wide arc to the right side, then moved elegantly to the left and lured the Swiss super goalie Leonardo Genoni to this side. Then, shortly before the goal, Noebels veered to the right again, in order to then artfully carry the puck past Genoni to the bottom corner with a very long arm and one-handed. After a penalty drama at the 2021 World Cup, Germany celebrated the semi-finals, the favored Switzerland was badly beaten – also in Riga, by the way.
Noebels: “The Swiss are not happy”
again. At the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, the DEB team also won their knockout game against the ice comrades on their way to sensational silver. In 2010 at the home World Cup, the triumphant in the quarter-finals in Mannheim was also called: Germany. “In all the games we’ve played against them, a lot of positive things have come out of it for us”Noebels now rejoices and encourages himself and his colleagues: “The Swiss isn’t happy that the German is in front of him again on Thursday.”
This time, however, the form speaks a little more clearly for Switzerland than in the three previous duels. The team of successful coach Patrick Fischer has eight NHL stars in their ranks, and the preliminary round was a single show for the World Cup runners-up in 2018 and 2013: Slovenia was shot out of the hall 7-0, as well as the 3-0 against Norway , the 5-0 win against Kazakhstan and the 4-2 wins against Slovakia and the Czech Republic were demonstrations of power. The Swiss also defeated Canada 3-2, only the (meaningless) final game against co-hosts Latvia was lost 3-4 after extra time.
Already 19 different goal scorers in Switzerland
What makes the Swiss particularly strong this time is their unpredictability, their unity and strength in all ranks. The 29 World Cup goals scored so far are spread over 19 (!) different shooters, only Andres Ambühl and Nico Niederreiter stand out with four goals each.
But: Here, too, the Germans don’t have to hide at all with 16 different shooters and 27 goals. The top shooter is Nico Sturm with five, followed by John-Jason Peterka with four.
Noebels expects “heated” duel
National coach Harold Kreis, who was there as assistant coach in the quarter-final win against Switzerland 13 years ago, doesn’t think too much of the blatant outsider role either: “I have a lot of confidence in my team, we will be prepared. The Swiss will certainly not dictate the game, we will play against them on an equal footing.”
Noebels can hardly wait for another showdown: “It’s always great, fire and flames – it gets heated.” He still has his ice dance penalty from 2021 in mind, but the memory alone shouldn’t fix it: “I’m taking nice moments from the past with me. But the boys are in the mood for a new story.”