Why Croatia could intentionally lose to Germany

With a win against Croatia, the DHB team can make it to the semi-finals of the home European Championship. That could also be in the interest of the Croatians.

Nils Kögler reports from Cologne

It is a unique opportunity for the German national handball team: With a victory in the last main round game (on Wednesday from 8.30 p.m. in the t-online live ticker) the DHB team can make it to the semi-finals of the home European Championship. With Croatia, the German selection has to eliminate a proud handball nation that has a strong leader in captain Domagoj Duvnjak from the Bundesliga team THW Kiel.

But do the Croats actually want to win against Germany? The starting position before the game is such that a defeat against the European Championship hosts could be an advantage for the Croatians. The reason is the Olympic qualification.

Twelve handball teams qualify for the Olympic Games, which will take place in Paris in the summer. Host country France has its place just as secure as Denmark as reigning world champions, Argentina as winner of the Pan American Games and Japan as winner of the Asian qualifying event. At the African Championships and the European Championships, more teams now have the opportunity to book a ticket for Paris.

Normally the European champion qualifies directly for Paris. However, France and Denmark, two of the three established semi-finalists, have already secured qualification. Should either country win the title, the runner-up would receive the Paris ticket. If France and Denmark play in the final, the third-place team will qualify for the Olympics. At the end of the African and European Championships, six of the twelve Olympic tickets will have already been taken (France, Denmark, Argentina, Japan, African champions and team from the European Championship).

The remaining six Olympic starting places will be determined in qualifying tournaments. These take place in March in three groups with four teams each. The two best-placed teams in each group receive a ticket to the Olympics. However, you first have to qualify for these qualifying tournaments. Spain, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Egypt and Hungary are seeded because they took third to eighth place at the World Cup last year.

Croatia, on the other hand, took ninth place at the tournament. In order to be able to take part in one of the qualifying tournaments, the Croatians have to hope that one of the teams mentioned above manages to qualify directly for Paris, so that they would slip into the qualifying tournament.

Spain and Norway have already been eliminated from the European Championships and will therefore not make this possible. Sweden has already been confirmed as the third semi-finalist. Croatia could decide to intentionally lose to Germany, making them the fourth and final semi-finalist. This would ensure that either Sweden or Germany book the direct Olympic ticket (France and Denmark have already qualified) and thus enable Croatia to take part in the qualification tournament.

However, if the Croatians beat the Germans and Austria advance to the semi-finals by beating Iceland, there would be a chance that the Austrians could secure direct Olympic qualification. Then all teams seeded for the qualifying tournaments would actually have to compete there and Croatia would be left out. They may not want to risk such a scenario, especially since they have already been safely eliminated from the European Championships and a win against Germany would be of no use.

“It obviously seems absurd,” said DHB sports director Axel Kromer at a press conference on Tuesday. However, the Germans don’t want to rely on the Croatians playing with the handbrake on because of this starting position.

“The most important thing will be that we free ourselves from the fact that we might be given something for free,” said Kromer. But he could “assuage the fears of sports fans a little bit”. Kromer estimates the chance of Croatia getting into a qualifying tournament as “pretty high anyway”.

Because even if Egypt wins the African Championships “as usual,” that would be enough for the Croatians. In fact, it is not unlikely that Egypt will win the title. The Egyptians have won five of the last ten tournaments, including the last two in a row.