The German handball juniors travel to the quarter-finals of the U21 World Cup in Berlin with a clean sheet. The still undefeated team of trainer Martin Heuberger won one day after the 30:29 victory over defending champion France at the end of the main round in Magdeburg against Croatia, second in the World Cup, 31:29 (15:12).
As group winners, the World Cup co-organizers will meet the youngsters of world champion and Olympic silver medalist Denmark on Thursday (9:00 p.m.) in the German capital after five successes in the fight for a place in the semifinals. The semifinals on Saturday and the medal games on Sunday will also take place in Berlin at the weekend.
Last World Cup medal 2015
The talents of the German Handball Federation (DHB) had previously won the title in 2009 and 2011, both times with the later men’s national coach Heuberger on the bench. The German U21 juniors won their last World Cup medal to date by finishing third in Brazil eight years ago.
“We’re glad we won this game too”said Heuberger after the “final” to win the group against the Balkan team, “until Croatia started playing with seven field players to catch up, which I don’t think is a good tactic, we played well. We will use the break until the quarter-finals to prepare well.”
negligence in the final phase
As expected, the DHB team around their top talent Renars Uscin (Hannover-Burgdorf) took the initiative against the Croatians and gained a lead. Similar to the trembling victory against the French the day before, Heuberger’s players let their cushion, which had temporarily grown to six goals, melt down to one goal in the final phase.
In the end, the hosts saved the work success with luck and skill over time. The most successful pitcher of the DHB team was Berlin’s Tim Freihöfer with seven goals. Erlangen’s Stephan Seitz and Justus Fischer (Hannover-Burgdorf) each scored five goals.