Dortmund (dpa) – Clear the stage for the young and wild. After several resignations and cancellations, national coach Alfred Gislason made a virtue out of necessity and appointed nine tournament newcomers to the 19-man squad for the 2022 European Handball Championship.
With goalkeeper Andreas Wolff, backcourt players Julius Kühn, Kai Häfner and Simon Ernst as well as circle runner Jannik Kohlbacher, there are only five European champions from 2016 left for the final from January 13th to 30th in Hungary and Slovakia.
“We have an inexperienced team and we need time, but I am sure that we will be on the record with a great heart from the first second,” said Gislason. “These 19 players are ready and all of them have format. Everyone can now show themselves and play in the foreground.”
Familiar names are missing
This is especially true for the players who have not yet played a major tournament. The goalkeepers Joel Birlehm and Till Klimpke, the backcourt players Sebastian Heymann, Julian Köster, Luca Witzke, Djibril M’Bengue and Christoph Steinert as well as the outside Lukas Mertens and Lukas Zerbe are still relatively unknown on the big handball stage. The squad is led by captain Johannes Golla from the vice-champion SG Flensburg-Handewitt. The most experienced player in the squad is Patrick Wiencek. The 32-year-old runner from the record champions THW Kiel has so far completed 150 international matches.
On the other hand, there are no familiar names such as Fabian Wiede, Paul Drux, Juri Knorr, Patrick Groetzki, Hendrik Pekeler – who canceled for various reasons – or Steffen Weinhold, Johannes Bitter and Uwe Gensheimer, who ended their careers in the national team after the Olympics. “Of course I am not enthusiastic about the cancellations,” admitted Gislason.
The association now sees this as a general problem. “We are annoyed that some national players, for a variety of reasons, do not see their careers as consistently in the national team as is the case in other nations often come. That’s one thing that we don’t like, “said DHB sports director Axel Kromer.
Optimism at the DHB
Nevertheless, he looks forward to the finals with confidence. “The mix in our national team consists of young and experienced players, some of whom are still unknown internationally, but consistently mercilessly motivated. We have an exciting team that can play carefree and will give handball fans a lot of pleasure,” said Kromer. There is great euphoria in the team: “Everyone was really happy to be able to play the European Championship.”
It starts on New Year’s Day when the DHB convoy meets for the course in Großwallstadt. The preparation for the European Championship will conclude with two international matches against Serbia on January 7th in Mannheim and January 9th in Wetzlar. “Our plan is in place, we will start working together in the training hall in the new year,” said Gislason. “We will prepare specifically for our EM opponents.”
Three days after the last European Championship test, the DHB team travels to Bratislava, where they face Belarus, Austria and Poland in the preliminary round. “We know that we are anything but a favorite. We have to compensate for the lack of experience with enthusiasm and team unity,” said Gislason, formulating the EM contract.
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