Füchse Berlin are still undefeated after nine games and are the Bundesliga leaders. It’s a success for which there are good reasons – and they also make the big coup conceivable. But there are also personal explosives. By Johannes Moore
Nine games, eight wins, one draw: After a great start, Füchse Berlin are leading the Bundesliga handball table. Many injuries shake the team, but so far have not slowed down the winning streak. It looks as if the club can realize its great ambitions – “But we certainly have a chance to reach for the stars” (Managing Director Bob Hanning) – this season. Four reasons that speak for the foxes winning the title.
1. High squad quality
It was the “foosball”, who resorted to a superlative before the season. The squad of the Füchse Berlin, it was read there, is “the most exciting in the league”: Almost without weaknesses in width and with several players at the top who can make the difference.
Foxes win Krimi against Bergischer HC with 29:27
This assessment proved to be true from the start. A team shone that lost little quality but gained a lot – in goal through Viktor Kireev, in defense through Max Darj and in the creative control center through Mathias Gidsel. ‘Furiose Foxes’ became an alliteration that was used in the media just as often as it was rightly so.
The Danish superstar Gidsel, in particular, took the team, which was already set up for high demands in the first few games – third in the previous season, long with hopes of more – to another level. The 23-year-old was not only for record champions Kiel to the personified handball nightmare. That he injured his hand with the national team and therefore has been absent for weeks, was a blow for the Berliners. The fact that they can cushion this – as well as simultaneous injuries to Fabian Wiede or Lasse Andersson – leads to the next point…
2. Excellence in young talent
… and thus to one, if not the merit of Foxes Managing Director Bob Hanning – and at the same time the next superlative. The association has a network that “probably unique in the world” be, the 54-year-old said a few months ago. This was finally completed with the promotion of 1. VfL Potsdam – under the direction of coach Hanning – to the second division: Because now the foxes professionals play in the Bundesliga, the Brandenburg cooperation partner in the second and the young foxes in the third division.
It is this youth and youth work for which Hanning works and works around the clock – and which secures “a talent pool of around 60 players” for the Berliners. The foxes benefit from this in principle, and now even more so in times of personal need. Coach Jaron Siewert also emphasizes this. It’s currently a “dance on the razor blade,” he says in an rbb|24 interview about the many injuries, “but our youth work is excellent.”
Max Beneke is such an example. The 19-year-old currently plays in the first and second leagues. At the weekend he first defeated with VfL Potsdam Großwallstadt, then he scored three goals for Füchse Berlin to the hard-fought victory against Bergischer HC at. Nils Lichtlein and Matthes Langhoff (both 20), who is also injured at the moment, were permanently integrated into the pros this year. And then there is Tim Freihöfer. He played a key role in Potsdam’s rise last season, developed himself at a rapid pace – and is now an indispensable part of the foxes’ left winger.
“The boys are simply part of the team, regardless of whether they play here or at Potsdam,” says Siewert. They are completely integrated “and have been for two or three years. That makes life easier for us to build on them too. They are thrown in and take responsibility. It’s fun to see them on the record.”
3. Team spirit
“The mood in the team,” says Tim Freihöfer – watch out, the next form of improvement – “really really good”. Everyone comes to training motivated every day, “we have fun away from home and then it’s easier to play when you also have a few wins.” The foxes are in the flow. It sounds very similar to his coach. “The team spirit that we got from the first successes strengthens us in our actions right now. And then you sometimes win such a tight game as against BHC.”
In this harmony, however, there are also noises. And violent. The friction between the club and Hans Lindberg because of his unextended contract are big – and public. In particular, between the Danes and Foxes sports director Stefan Kretzschmar it should seethe. After the game against Bergischer HC, Lindberg broke out again in an interview.
Hanning is also in demand in this situation – as a mediator. “We did it the way we are used to, namely that we clarify things internally,” he said on Thursday in a press release of the club quoted. “Now I hope that we can focus on the successful work of the team again.” You have a “strategic orientation, for which we act in a future-oriented manner”. From this, the decision was made “and the player was informed in good time in October”.
4. Ambitious realism
The foxes want more – and make no secret of it. The word “championship” belongs to the active vocabulary. Hanning sees the Berliners as one of “four teams that can justifiably say that they are playing for the title.” This may sound cautious, but this statement is from the same “daily mirror“-Interview [Bezahlinhalt] clearer: “I would like to play in the Champions League next year, but we have to be at least second for that. But we definitely have the chance to reach for the stars.”
Kretzschmar also embodies this ambition. Without too much understatement, the management duo would undoubtedly prefer to get to the top sooner rather than later. The team has so far indicated that they can do it: with furious victories like against record champions Kiel, but also with hard-fought – and no less important – successes like against Bergischer HC. The foxes showed the quality and resilience in the crunch time, which was missing time and time again last season and cost the crucial points.
“We keep our feet on the ground. We have to give 100 percent every time to get the points,” says Siewert. Facts instead of dreams occupy the trainer. It is – despite all the joy about the good start – still “very early in the season”. That sounds very sober in the choice of words. But it almost makes an even greater impression that Siewert formulated second place as a (minimum) claim in this objectivity. The Champions League qualification is “the primary goal”. Whether it’s enough for more, “we’ll see then”.
Broadcast: rbb24, November 1st, 2022, 6 p.m
