The high flight was followed by a quick setback: After a surprise coup against defending champions Norway at the European Championships in France, the German handball players lost their second group game and must fear for the achievement of the minimum goal of qualifying for the main round.
The team of national coach Henk Groener lost on Monday in Brest to the European Championship fifth Romania after a weak performance deserved with 24:29 (11:14).
“The serenity and calm of the Norwegian game were not there at all,” said Groener after the final siren: “Right from the start there was stress and hectic in the game. We all kept running into the middle, discarding things. It wasn’t until the game was lost that we did it better.”
Circulating runner Julia Behnke, with eight goals, was by far the most successful thrower of the German Handball Federation (DHB) selection, which will compete against the Czech Republic in Group D on Wednesday (18.00 hrs/Eurosport and sportdeutschland.tv) – exactly 25 years to the day after winning the last big title at the 1993 World Championships, the pressure will be great.
“We have shown Norway that we can play at the highest level. Our task now is to repeat that. Romania will demand everything from us, our tempo play is in demand again”, Groener had explained before the game.
But in Brest, two days after the 33:32 against the highly favoured Scandinavians, the German team had considerable concentration problems right from the start. After five minutes the DHB selection was already 1:5 behind, after nine minutes (3:6) Groener took his first time-out.
Although the Romanians subsequently weakened themselves with time penalties, the exploitation of chances and defensive stability remained the weak points of the German team. It was Behnke’s five goals up to the change of sides that made it possible for the match not to be decided after 30 minutes.
In the second half, however, the German team could not eliminate its weaknesses either, and the outstanding Romanian goalkeeper Denisa Dedu repeatedly brought despair to the back of the field for top talent Emily Bölk.
On the Romanian side there was another reason to be happy besides the early entry into the main round, for which the best three teams of each group qualify: Cristina Neagu was successful five times, so that the three-time world handball player with 206 European Championship goals reached the top of the eternal list of the best.