After the World Cup is before the DHB Cup: For many national handball players, things continue straight after the World Cup – an enormous burden that the coaches in particular have to deal with sensitively.
Julian Köster didn’t have much time to catch his breath. Last Sunday, the handball player was on the field with the German national team at the World Cup in Poland and Sweden in Stockholm and took fifth place with the DHB selection. Then it was off to the plane and back home.
For three days, the 22-year-old was allowed to put his feet up and be cared for by the physiotherapists at his club, VfL Gummersbach. His trainer Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson is already expecting him in the training hall this Thursday (February 2nd, 2023), because the handball mill keeps turning almost non-stop, and the preparation for the cup game on Saturday (7 p.m.) against TBV Lemgo is pending.
In previous major tournaments, the German Handball Association at least included the sportingly insignificant Allstar Game after a European Championship or World Cup, this time it continues directly with the cup quarter-finals, where there is a lot at stake. After all, a six-digit sum beckons for reaching the lucrative Final Four tournament in April.
“Get your head clear first”
In any case, Gummersbach’s coach Sigurdsson tries to be as careful as possible with his young star Köster. “Julian was a little shaky after the last World Cup game. He played a lot. Then there’s no point in bringing him back indoors and letting him continue working. He needs to clear his head now.”, says the Icelander. Just five days later, on Thursday (February 9th, 2023), VfLer will meet Lemgo-Lippe again, this time in the Bundesliga.
After these two games, Sirgudsson wants to decide whether Köster can still take a few vacation days, because then VfL will have two weeks without a game. “Of course we need him and we want to have him with us. Julian played a total of six to seven hours at the World Cup. It’s a huge burden, so he gets a few more days off because we know he’s in good shape .We just have to get him fit for the next games“, says the coach in an interview with the sports show.
Nine games in 17 days
The World Cup tournament was undoubtedly an enormous burden. The German team played nine games in 17 days – a mammoth program. In addition, there were travel strains, the German team moved twice. Even during the tournament, players like Juri Knorr had criticized the inflated tournament schedule. “I don’t understand this mode. Anyone who plays professional sports at this level knows how intense the games are. It is dangerous for us and for our body”said Knorr in the World Cup venue Katowice.
For the German team doctor Philipp Lübke, on the other hand, intensive care for the players is particularly important. “It’s a lot, but not too much. We have well-trained top athletes who know the strain from the Bundesliga. And we can steer them well, we have everything under control“said the orthopedist from Kiel during the World Cup. The most important thing is the hands of the physiotherapists.
For Marion Sulprizio, a sports psychologist at the Cologne Sports University, the right way to deal with great exertion is crucial. “You can make up for the heavy workload with a good ‘mood’, a good mood. The German players had that when they finished fifth.” In general, it is important that every player finds regeneration strategies for himself, both physically and psychologically. That could be going to the sauna or spending time with the family. Everyone ticks differently, says Sulprizio.
Old discussion with new protagonists
The discussion about the enormously high workload is not new in professional handball and has flared up again and again in recent years without drastic changes being made.
In any case, Sigurdsson is holding back on this topic. “I’m not going to get into this black hole now. I’ve been a player for 20 years, now I’m a coach. I understand my colleagues, who are also in international competitions and have a game every three or four days. It’s an eternal one topic that we will not solve today‘ said the ex-pro.
Florian Kehrmann, the coach of Gummersbach’s upcoming opponent TBV Lemgo-Lippe, is familiar with the additional burden of European Cup games. In the fall, Kehrmann and his team played not only in the championship and the cup, but also in the European Cup, but only up to the second round, after which the Lippers were eliminated in the EHF Cup.
Kehrmann: Talk to the players a lot
Like Sigurdsson, Kehrmann does not want to sue. Of course he too had to come to terms with the enormous workload of his players, he couldn’t change anything about it. “That should be decided by those who have to decide, I’m the wrong contact person for that”, according to Kehrmann. In the German national player Lukas Zerbe, the Spaniard Gedeon Guardiola and the Dutchmen Bobby Schrgen and Versteijen, the TBV sent four national players to the World Cup.
Like Julian Köster, Zerbe and Guardiola were still in action on Sunday, the Spaniard even achieved third place with his team. However, that did not prevent Guardiola from being back in training in the Lemgoer Halle on Tuesday, as Florian Kehrmann reports. “Some players need more time, others less. They regenerate quickly and don’t need long breaks”, according to the TBV coach. His motto: talk to the players a lot to find out how they are doing.
Discussions are also an important component for sports psychologist Marion Sulprizio. And in this context she makes an appeal to the trainers: “It’s important for them to see: What can I expect from the players in phases of high exertion. The coaches should take away the players’ fear that they won’t be thrown out of the squad if they are used less.”says Sulprizio.
Maik Machulla: More time to reflect
Maik Machulla, the coach of SG Flensburg-Handewitt, relies on the momentum that his Danish national players bring to the Förde from winning the World Cup. In Kevin and Lasse Möller, Emil Jakobsen, Simon Hald, Jakob Hansen and Mads Mensah, Machulla has a Danish sextet that won the World Cup.
The coach would have liked more time for his players to process their successes and experiences and to reflect a little. “So it’s just a tick, job done, medal bagged and one more title on the list”said Machulla. SG Flensburg-Handewitt also plays against HSG Wetzlar in the quarter-finals of the cup competition on Saturday.