The German handball team started the European Championship it organizes with a show of strength both on the court, after beating Switzerland by a resounding 27-14, and in the stands, where 53,586 spectators gathered to watch the debut of the German team.
A figure that made it possible to equal the world record for attendance at a handball match that was established just a couple of hours before in the clash in the same venue, the MERKUR Spiel-Arena in Düsseldorf, in the match between France and Macedonia.
If there were no doubts about achieving the attendance record, after exceeding 50,000 tickets sold for the opening day last September, more questions arose about the performance of the German team. Especially after the last-minute losses of frontline player Marian Michalczik and winger Patrick Groetzki, two key pieces in the plans of the German coach, the Icelandic Alfred Gislason.
Doubts that goalkeeper Andy Wolff was responsible for erasing with a stroke of his pen, who seems willing to repeat, this time in front of his audience, the outstanding performance that led Germany to the continental title in 2016 in Poland. As confirmed by the eight interventions that Wolff, who at times exceeded 66 percent of saves, made in a first half in which the German goalkeeper became an almost insurmountable wall for the Swiss players.
Stops and more stops that condemned the Swiss team to adding only one goal between minutes seven and nineteen, which Germany did not waste to definitively break the contest with a partial 7-1 that placed the locals with an advantage of six goals (9-3) on the scoreboard. But the German team can not only boast a sensational goalkeeper, but they also have one of the most talented players on the current scene, center back Juri Knorr.
The German player, who during his training period went through the Barça youth system, showed that he is not only a magnificent passer, but also a merciless scorer as witnessed by the six goals with which he closed the match.
However, the German team did not need the best version of the third leg on which the local team's medal chances are based, the pivot Johannes Golla, author of a single goal. And they didn't even need to score a goal (27-14) against a Switzerland that further exacerbated the offensive problems of the first half in the second thirty minutes in which the Swiss only managed to score six goals.
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