Ein pattern without value? Some quick and opinionated assessments of this European Handball Championship should now be discarded. Because it was a final weekend full of class and excitement. At the latest when the four already dominant countries Denmark, Spain, Sweden and France took part in the finals in Budapest, the feared outsider victory was ruled out. Feared because a possibly unexpected European champion from, say Hungary, would only have been proof that the favorites fell victim to Corona. Proof, therefore, that this European Championship would have been worthless in terms of sport.
It didn’t happen that way. The semi-finalists largely competed with their best squads. Some, like Sweden’s goalkeeper Andreas Palicka, were able to free themselves in time. Others, like the Spaniard Joan Canellas (already for the main round) or the Frenchman Kentin Mahé (at least for the small final), also came back. Miraculously, the Danes were hardly affected by virus failures anyway.
Certainly, the public verdict on this “Omicron-EM” would have been devastating if it had hit Jim Gottfridsson, Gonzalo Perez de Vargas, Mikkel Hansen and Nikola Karabatic after positive PCR tests. So it was luck in disguise that the stars of the scene remained able to play and left their mark on this high-class sporting event. That could not help those nations groaning under the weight of the casualties. The Germans, Croatia, and in the end the Netherlands too – they lost at this European Championship because they lost the fight against the virus at a crucial point.
And yet this EM sends out an encouraging signal. The narrative of the days in Bratislava and Budapest was also how the followers used their chance. How team spirit compensated for individual inferiority. Speaking on the meta level: With all detailed questions that have to be answered critically, people here didn’t let the virus get them down. Yes, you can call it bread and circuses. But you can also find it appropriately courageous not to cancel everything and to withdraw to your own four walls.
Of course, the already highly stressed professionals had to put up with the bones. You are not spared by reduced appointment calendars, and you are now supposed to defy the virus? Most of the national coaches have found at least a partial answer to this with enlarged squads in the preparation phase. It’s no longer 16-20 players to choose from. There are 30. The quality has spread throughout Europe; there is good education, many leagues, also in the east, are strong. There’s enough money in the game. So it was curtain up for players like Oscar Bergendahl, Karl Konan, Viktor Hallgrimsson, Agustin Casado. Just a second row, now heads of this EM. What can also be said of the German Julian Köster.
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