Even without playmaker Juri Knorr, the German handball players confidently won the second main round game of the Handball World Cup against Italy with 34:27 (15:13) and are virtually in the quarter-finals. A strong Andreas Wolff and joker Franz Semper pulled the plug on the Italians.
If the top favorite Denmark wins against Switzerland (8.30 p.m., in the live ticker on sportschau.de), the DHB team will qualify for the quarter-finals ahead of the final game against Tunisia.
“The early final” – that’s how the game between the German national handball team and the World Cup surprise from Italy was repeatedly referred to in advance. Because if coach Alfred Gislason’s team was to continue in the tournament, the motto was very clear: Losing is forbidden! The DHB team had to do without their head in the attack for this groundbreaking duel. National player Juri Knorr was missing due to flu, as was left winger Rune Dahmke.
Director Knorr is missing from the early group finals
Accompanied by the frenetic clapping of the spectators in Herning, the Italians started the biggest game in their handball history with their atmospheric national anthem “Fratelli d’Italia”. As expected, Luca Witzke (SC DHfK Leipzig) replaced the missing Juri Knorr in attack, while captain Johannes Golla was once again allowed to start at the back from the start. Otherwise, Gislason relied on his well-established seven with Julian Köster and Renars Uščins in the half positions.
There was a fair amount of nervousness at the start of the game. The Italians made three technical errors in the first two minutes. This left Domenico Ebner (SC DHfK Leipzig) in the Italian goal completely cold. The German-Italian was able to distinguish himself first against teammate Witzke (1st) and then against the free Zerbe (2nd). However, the goalkeeper was powerless to face Timo Kastening’s seven-meter penalty (4th) – despite previous “wink-wink games” against his Bundesliga colleague.
Combative Italy won’t let Germany move away
After David Späth was preferred against Denmark, Kiel veteran Andi Wolff started again against Italy. With a deficit of 4:7 (12th) and only one save, the national coach tried to change the goalkeeper, but then decided against it. The subsequent 6:2 run by the DHB team was mainly due to the aggressive and compact defense (10:9 18th) – Wolff continued to have difficulty with the southern Europeans’ throws.
One person in particular shined at the front in Knorr’s absence: Julian Köster (VfL Gummersbach). The backfield left almost always made the right decision, either serving the outside or finding his way to the goal himself. This is one of the reasons why we went into the break with a narrow 15:13 lead.
After half-time, the German defense started strong again and did not allow the Italians to score any easy shots. ARD expert Jogi Bitter also praised the Golla/Köster inner block in the audio stream: “So far, the defense has been the problem child, especially the middle block – but today we found our way in better, defended well 1 on 1 and prevented breakthroughs.” Since goalkeeper Andi Wolff was also getting better and better into the game, it only seemed like a matter of time before the German team pulled away.
Semper with a perfect World Cup debut
Substitute Franz Semper thought so too. The left-hander shone in his tournament debut with three goals within three minutes and brought the gap to six goals for the first time in the 39th minute (20:14). Then the German team made life difficult for themselves again. The DHB players repeatedly failed because of the strong Domenico Ebner.
It’s just a good thing that the Germans also have a world-class goalkeeper. The 33-year-old Wolff increased his rate of balls saved in the middle of the second half to a strong 50% and took four penalty throws from the Italians. After that, at the latest, the morale and also the strength of the southern Europeans were broken. With the feeling that two points had been secured, the national coach switched gears and tried tactical means in the attack, such as using the seventh field player. That didn’t bring any disruption to the German attacking game either.
Andi Wolff wears Italians down with his parades
Jogi Bitter summed it up on the ARD microphone: “It was as we hoped, that the German team would keep the level and intensity high and the Italians couldn’t keep up.” Andi Wolff played a large part in the German success with his total of 18 saves, which paved the way for Germany’s success, especially in the second half.