Handball European Championship: DHB after opening victory: Just a lukewarm breeze

After the relaxed 32:19 victory of the DHB team at the start of the European Championship in Croatia against Montenegro, national coach Christian Prokop is satisfied. In the meantime, Bob Hanning calls for calmness. After all, it’s only now that something is brewing in the witch’s cauldron.

When the players made their positive statements, Bob Hanning entered the Mixed Zone in the Arena Zagreb. The DHB Vice President also praised the team’s performance, but in the end he felt that he was anxious to be a bit of a admonisher.

“I am very much in favour of us classifying this game in a relaxed manner,”said the 49-year-old:”It was a strong game, a lot of things worked out, we did many things right. But nobody should overvalue this game. I warn against too much euphoria.”

What Hanning meant by this is clear:”Despite all the justified praise for the Bad Boys, one must not forget that Montenegro was not a benchmark. The troop from the south-eastern Adriatic coast, plagued by injury worries, was a thankful opponent – no more and no less.

“We were so good, not the opponent so weak,” said the convincing Philipp Weber, defending himself against this view of things:”The opponent is only as good as we allow it to be.

After some minor difficulties, Germany had the game completely under control after a few minutes in the beginning. Especially Patrick Wiencek, the goalkeeper Andreas Wolff with 46 percent of the defensive throws, played a decisive role in the defence.

And even in the attack, the flexibility already seen in the preparation of the attack was flashing up again and again. Ten DHB players entered the scorers list, all formations worked aggressively and defensively well to neatly. Every player who was allowed on the playing field wanted to show himself and gave it a go.

“We brought a very good overall package to the record,”said national coach Christian Prokop:”We were very agile in the defence, and this became even stronger in the course of the game. In the offensive we showed a good pace over long distances, even though we missed a few chances in the second half. What I really liked was the low number of technical errors.”

The captain agreed with Prokop, who had played his first match as national coach at a major tournament at all,”We went to work concentrated and showed a consistent performance from the very beginning. If we perform like this and are so aggressive, it will be difficult for every opponent,”Uwe Gensheimer analyzed.

Thus a situation around Wolff remained the only shock of the day. The keeper from THW Kiel had to leave the field ten minutes before the end for Silvio Heinevetter. First he was treated on the bench at the ankle joint, minutes later he limped through the catacombs.

Fortunately, the all-clear sounded soon,”he said after the game that it’s not so bad. He hadn’t noticed it in the game at first, but with increasing time it got worse. I don’t think we still have to worry,”Prokop said.

The 2016 European Championship hero of 2016 could nevertheless receive a break in the next game. It is quite possible that Prokop will give Heinevetter, who is so convincing in the preparation, a chance to find his way into the tournament. After all, the German team, which had to take four points and two more victories into the semi-finals, will need two goalkeepers at the highest level in the course of the game.

The coming tasks on Monday against Slovenia (18.10 o’ clock in the LIVETICKER) and two days later against Macedonia (18.10 o’ clock in the LIVETICKER) become much trickier. This was already evident in the direct duel between the two teams. In a fiercely contested match, Macedonia won against the 2017 World Cup semi-finalists surprisingly 25:24.

“Now it’s time to prepare for Slovenia. They are a team that is very strong in all positions and puts a lot of pressure on them. They also have a good goalkeeper. They will also be supported by many fans, so we have to show a top performance on Monday,”said Prokop.

The atmosphere in the Zagreb arena, which is supposedly sold out against Slovenia with 15,000 spectators, is likely to heat up from now on. Against Montenegro,”the witch’s cauldron was just a lukewarm breeze”, as Hanning stated:”This is going to be quite different now. “There’s not only waiting on the field, there’s a whole other calibre waiting in the stands.”