Handball: DHB-Vize Hanning with high expectations

Bob Hanning is going into the mission of defending his title at the European Championship in Croatia with great expectations of the German team. The sports chief of the German Handball Federation (DHB) did not specify a concrete goal for the final round, but in an interview with the SID, he emphasized:”A German team must always deliver. That must always be the standard.”

After the last sixteen at the World Cup in France a year ago, the German team is forced to pull out “Whoever can’t understand the pressure as a tailwind, doesn’t belong to a German national team. We must use this as a tailwind to sweep over our opponents like a hurricane,”said Hanning.

The DHB Vice President keeps a low profile when it comes to association guidelines. Hanning is “a friend of working out goals from within. I don’t think we put everything in the pot at the World Cup. If we learn from this and draw conclusions from it, Germany will always be able to beat any team.”

The tournament will start for the German team flying to Zagreb on Thursday with the match against Montenegro on Saturday (17.15 hrs in LIVETICKER). Other opponents in the preliminary round are the World Cup third place Slovenia on Monday and Macedonia on Wednesday. The European Championship is the first tournament for national coach Christian Prokop, who took over from Dagur Sigurdsson last spring.