Handball veteran Alexander Petersson almost went down the wrong path as a teenager: “Handball steered my life in a better direction.”
“I don’t know what would have become of me if I hadn’t had handball,” said the backcourt player for Bundesliga club MT Melsungen in an interview with “Mannheimer Morgen”. “I participated in all sorts of nonsense, was in a kind of youth gang. And there you do more and more nonsense the older you get. That’s why I was glad that at some point I had the sport. It kept me from taking the wrong path. “
The 41-year-old, who was born in Latvia and later acquired Icelandic citizenship, ended his successful career after the last Bundesliga matchday on June 12. With the Rhein-Neckar Löwen, Petersson won the EHF Cup in 2013, the German Championship in 2016 and 2017 and the DHB Cup in 2018. With Iceland he won Olympic silver in 2008 and bronze in 2010. The all-star record player has scored 1,750 goals in 519 Bundesliga games to date.
This was only possible because he went to Iceland from Latvia at the age of 18. “It was really important for me because from that moment there was a big distance between me and this threatening gang life in Riga. I was suddenly in a different world,” said Petersson. In 2003 he moved to Germany, where he also played for HSG Düsseldorf, TV Großwallstadt, SG Flensburg-Handewitt and Füchse Berlin. “I was in a team with a lot of great players. I’m really grateful for that,” emphasized Petersson.