Handball players run, jump and throw, but they should not lie on their stomachs behind the substitution bench. In this respect, it was a picture that Juri Knorr presented on Wednesday evening in Herning that took some getting used to. The German playmaker slipped on a wet spot on the hall floor and fell to the ground without making contact with an opponent. The physiotherapist knelt next to Knorr for a long time, worked on the muscles on his upper and lower leg, and felt the knee joint. The diagnosis: You don’t know yet.
A little later, as Knorr wandered through the corridors of the Jyske Bank pits, looking for the German team cabin, his gait was noticeably rounder again. “It was a scary moment,” said national coach Alfred Gislason after the hard-fought 35:28 win at the start of the World Cup against Poland: “It didn’t look so good, but Juri said it was just a sprain.” The hope is that nothing serious was diagnosed during the examinations in the team hotel in Silkeborg and that Knorr is fit to tackle the next tasks at this World Cup.
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And if not? A loss by Knorr would be bitter because the middle man has recently left a good, tidy and determined impression. He is an important part of the solution to how the German game can work better than in this nervous back and forth against the Poles. It’s about speed for German handball players, about the right speed in the game. On Wednesday the handball players were first too fast, then too slow and finally just right, that’s how the crux of the speed can be summarized.
When Gislason plays with two middle men, the Poles are overwhelmed
At first they exceeded the tempo guidelines because Knorr and colleagues “over-excited” at the start of the game, as Gislason analyzed. In the first ten minutes, every German attacker would have liked to jump straight into the fray and look for a goal. “We wanted too much too quickly,” said Gislason. Not that he didn’t understand this: the tension in the German team was great, especially after the improved performances in the last friendly games against Brazil. The team wanted to overrun the Poles and quickly clear things up and avoid any further woes. That initially backfired; the Poles were initially in the lead. Knorr had good actions as a game director, but he wasn’t always able to control the pace correctly.
This was followed by a phase in which the Germans suddenly reduced their speed. As the nervousness gradually subsided, the problems in defense increased, especially with the Polish pivot Kamil Syprzak and the half-left Ariel Pietrasik, and the tempo game weakened as a result. The national coach is already familiar with this phenomenon from his young team: “When we get annoyed in defense, we sometimes stop running the second wave.” The second wave is important in the Handball, when the ball is pushed forward quickly even though the first counter-attack option was not used. The opposing defensive lines are often caught in a disorganized state.
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Phase three followed, in which the Germans finally started the game in a relaxed manner – and the Poles had to realize that they could no longer keep up. That had a lot to do with the substitution of Luca Witzke, the team’s second middle man, who Gislason brought on towards the end of the first half; with the special feature that Gislason didn’t take Knorr off the field, but left both playmakers on the plate.
From then on, Witzke organized the lecture from the middle position, Knorr acted as the second creative force on the half-left side. It’s an option that Gislason has tried several times – almost always with success. With Knorr and Witzke, the ball runs through the backcourt much faster than if a regular half-left player plays there. If Renars Uscins, the best scorer against the Poles with ten goals, also acts on the half-right, the opponent has to stand very securely in order not to catch a twisting worm. The Germans now increased quickly, first leading by three goals, then by four, finally by seven.
The next group game against Switzerland follows on Friday
“It worked well when we played the fast ball,” said Witzke from Leipzig, who not only put Uscins in the spotlight after his substitution, but also sank five of five throws from the backcourt, a strong rate. Before his injury, Knorr also scored five goals and showed outstanding passes, in the first half to Justus Fischer at the circle and in the second to Uscins.
Witzke set the direction for the coming games: “Even more speed! In doing so, you tire the opponent at some point and force them to make mistakes.” In the other preliminary round games on Friday against Switzerland (8.30 p.m./ZDF) and on Sunday against the Czech Republic (6 p.m., ARD), this could still work without Juri Knorr if necessary . Especially since Nils Lichtlein is another middle man in the squad who also knows how to accelerate the ball.
Knorr should be fit again for the main round, for which the team can already plan after the opening win against Poland. “Juri is our number one middle man,” said Gislason. And a number one middleman like that sometimes doesn’t even have to play in the middle position.
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