Another demonstration of power, further tailwind for the Olympic mission: Germany’s handball players can in principle plan for the European Championships. The team of national coach Markus Gaugisch also outclassed Slovakia on Sunday (03.03.24) in the qualifying second leg with 32:18 (17:7) and has the ticket for this year’s finals in Switzerland, Austria and Hungary with three match days still remaining practically certain.
Jenny Behrend and Alexia Hauf (4 goals each) were the best throwers for the selection of the German Handball Federation (DHB) in front of around 3,000 spectators in Düsseldorf. Like three days before in the first leg in Sala (40:18), Gaugisch’s team dominated the outsiders at will at times, especially defensively, and continued to play their way into the upcoming Olympic qualification.
With the newly boosted self-confidence and new insights, the German team can now subordinate everything to the big dream of Paris. At the qualifying tournament in Neu-Ulm from April 11th to 14th, the DHB women will fight against Slovenia, Montenegro and outsiders Paraguay for their first participation in the Olympics since 2008. For the first time in more than ten years, women’s international games will be on public television transmitted.
Some start-up time necessary
The DHB women needed a slightly longer start-up time early on Sunday evening than in the first leg in order to express their playful superiority in the result.
Slovakia initially found more gaps offensively than in their home game. After about a quarter of an hour, the defense with the inside block of Bölk and Julia Behnke, who was playing her 100th international match, was significantly better. Despite a few substitutions, Germany remained without conceding a goal for almost 18 (!) minutes and went from 6:6 (10th) to 16:6 (27th) – the preliminary decision. Gaugisch distributed the forces across all shoulders and tested different formations under competition conditions.
One more point in the remaining three games in qualifying group 2 against Ukraine and Israel at the beginning of April guarantees Germany (6:0 points) participation in the European Championship. The European Championships will take place from November 28th to December 15th, 2024.