Handball: European Championship Qualification: DHB-Ladies start with draw

The German handball players started into the European Championship qualification with a draw.The national coach Michael Biegler’s team scored at least one point in the 26:26 (11:14) against underdog Lithuania after a splendid race to catch up, but 65 days before the opening game of the World Cup in their own country, they showed a long time mixed performance.

“At the end of the day, we can be happy that we didn’t make two points at home,”said Biegler at Sport1, who criticised the “lack of aggressiveness in the cover”.With regard to the home World Cup, he said:”We don’t bring our qualities to the surface, we have to increase them.We need to see if that was a good shot in front of the bow.

In the middle of the second half, the German team was already six goals behind, before catching up with goal after goal in the final phase and securing the draw one minute before the end.The best German goalscorer in front of 2153 spectators was 19-year-old Emily Bölk with six goals.

The German team will continue in the European Championship qualification with an away game on Sunday in Turkey.The third opponent in qualifying group 6 is Spain.The first two and the third best of all seven groups will be in France for the European Championship finals in December 2018.At the start of the World Cup, Germany will meet on 1.December in Cameroon.

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