AIn the end, the German team actually made it exciting again. A goal was still missing, not to win over Argentina, that was certain for a long time. But the goal with number forty didn’t want to come again on Thursday evening in Katowice. Djibril M’Bengue’s missed throw just under a minute before Ultimo should have been the last opportunity, after which the Argentines didn’t give up the ball anymore.
There would have been no bonus, no small attention of any kind for the round number, Paul Drux denied it, as did Alfred Gislason. “The distance is more important than the number,” said the national coach – and because it ended up being twenty goals, one more than the pitiful opponent had scored in the German 39:19 victory, nobody missed this special closing point.
What counted for the national handball team was the start of the main round, and it was a total success. Later, the German players were almost amazed at how they walked through this game. “We didn’t think it would be that easy,” said Patrick Groetzki, and Juri Knorr enthused that it was “extremely much fun”. But the lightness was of course the result of hard work and maximum concentration.
On Saturday against the Netherlands
In any case, the appearance made participants and spectators eager for the next games against the Netherlands and Norway and created an excellent basis for these not to be the last for Gislason’s team at this World Cup – although everyone pointed out that the upcoming opponents would be different have a collar size.
The top two in the group of six reach the quarter-finals, on Saturday (8:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the handball world championship and on ZDF) the game continues against the Dutch, who had an unexpectedly difficult time against Qatar on Thursday at 32:30. A pleasant side effect of his own high victory was that Gislason was able to rest his first seven after the break, just like in the last preliminary round game against Algeria.
The national coach was pleased to note how they were back against Argentina: in all freshness. From the third moment, after two technical mistakes, his team showed a seamless performance. Always wide awake, gripping on the defensive, with the bright joy of playing forward in all variations.
Knorr directed brilliantly and often looked for the finish himself, the wingers, first Groetzki, then Lukas Mertens had a strong pull to score, someone always had an idea to contribute, and because Andreas Wolff also defended his goal with all his might, the Argentines looked around Diego Simonet desperate for antidotes.
They took the second time-out early on, then tried their luck with a seventh outfield player, but that didn’t really slow the Germans down. With the half-time siren, Captain Johannes Golla scored for the fifth time, catching up with Groetzki and Mertens, and the scoreboard showed 24:11.
After the break, the top pitchers were Luca Witzke (four goals), Rune Dahmke and M’Bengue (three each). It was less structured now and there was no getting close to the goal-hunting of the first half. But because the defense remained remarkably stable, with a Joel Birlehm in goal who was in no way inferior to Wolff, the lead continued to grow.
In addition to the 40-goal question, two others promised a remainder of the tension: whether Drux would still be able to score a goal as the last German field player – in fact, number 39 was reserved for him. And who would be singled out as the player of the game from that homogenous team effort. That was Mertens, who was already wearing a training jacket and almost looked a little incredulous when his name was mentioned. The prize, he later said, “the team could have gotten, too.”
#Germany #Handball #World #Cup #lot #fun