Dhe question of whether players coming back from a Corona-related break can be of help is one of the best-kept secrets of this European Handball Championship. There is calculation, speculation, fear and hope. In fact, after his quarantine, Hendrik Wagner, 22, made it into the squad of the German Handball Federation (DHB) for the evening game against Sweden on Sunday – it was the last chance for the Germans to unexpectedly reach the semi-finals on Friday in Budapest. Wagner comes from the second division of the Eulen Ludwigshafen. That says a lot about the current condition of the national team.
From the 18th minute on, this Wagner came into play; the German fans cheered among the 2000 spectators in the Ondrej Nepela Arena, seconds later he even scored to make it 6:7. A few actions later, Wagner turned to national coach Alfred Gislason. He explained: “Hendrik told me that he couldn’t breathe after three attacks. I also asked him during the warm-up. Everything was okay then. But later I couldn’t be responsible for letting him play longer, after all, he was ill for a few days.”
The Germans didn’t just lack air in this painful 21:25 defeat against Sweden. Luck, cleverness, overview, goalkeeper performance: Although the DHB selection braced itself against the third European Championship defeat in a row, it was in the 51st minute after Lukas Stutzke’s goal to make it 18:19 and the Scandinavians were in this turbulent battle only marginally better. But with the sobering rate of 45 percent attack effectiveness, there was simply nothing to be gained. It must be commended that morale was right for all setbacks up to the last few seconds and the DHB provided a strong inner block with Johannes Golla and Patrick Wiencek.
Gislason summed it up: “I’m proud. We have tried everything. We had a fantastic defense. But I was extremely annoyed because we won the ball after a minute of fighting in defense and then played four long passes into the hands of the Swedes. That’s allowed to happen once per game at this level, not four times. That is not how it works. If you manage the long passes, you have four goals. We conceded four goals.”
The German pros threw away the chance to equalize or lead several times in the middle of the second half. Julian Köster, 21, from the second division club VfL Gummersbach became a tragic figure. Almost the entire burden of the German attack was on his shoulders – he contributed four goals from five attempts bravely and freshly against the concrete Swedish defence. But he made at least as many mistakes. Nevertheless, he is one of the bright spots of this EM. Köster later said: “We deliver an outstanding fight and in the end it fails because of small things. But I have a lot of fun here. Every game is an experience.”
The game against the Scandinavians was always entertaining and exciting. The Germans were 2:5 behind, their playmaker Philipp Weber had caught a pitch-black day, put on his training jacket shaking his head in the 22nd minute and trudged to the bench. Gislason made Paul Drux the director – that looked better, Drux also threw three goals. But the slight mistakes didn’t just get on Gislason’s last nerve that evening.
For the Germans, this tournament full of confusion ends on Tuesday in the largely meaningless final main round game against Russia (6 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Handball Championship and on ZDF). The motto of Gislason and his players, the first of whom have left – Lukas Mertens and Luca Witzke have left Bratislava, should be to get up again. In a “medical transport with specialist staff and the appropriate equipment”, as the DHB announced.
Christoph Steinert and Sebastian Firnhaber are also said to be on their way home (for which there was initially no confirmation from the DHB on Sunday evening); they had a positive test on Saturday – particularly bitter for Erlangen’s Firnhaber, who had been nominated but didn’t play a second in Bratislava.