What remained was goalkeeper Johannes Bitter‘s grim look and Julian Köster‘s smile. While the keeper clenched his fist and demonstrated his will with every save and every ball that didn’t land in his goal, Köster eventually just smiled to himself. It looked so easy what the 21-year-old created: A hop in the air, past the opponent, then he let the ball hiss into the cross corner. So he threw three goals, four goals, finally number five and six. The one who was least able to believe all this was Köster himself.
The old Bitter (yes, you can say that) and the young Köster were the decisive Poles in the furious 30:23 victory of the German handball team against Poland. After all the bad news of the past few days, when the number of corona cases in the team had jumped from two to nine, a clear defeat in the last preliminary round match against Poland would not have surprised anyone – but it turned out so completely differently.
What, he usually plays in the second division? Julian Köster in his very strong performance against Poland.
(Photo: Radovan Stoklasa / Reuters)
On the record was a team that never trained together – and was never intended to play together like this. With nine players who have been there since the start of the tournament, including Köster, a huge talent from the second division, who thinks highly of the national coach Alfred Gislason, but who was actually only supposed to get a taste of the big world of handball at the European Championships. And with five followers who were hastily flown in from Germany, including Bitter, 39, who had declared his career in the DHB team to be over after 170 international matches – and now, in an emergency, was in goal for over 60 minutes.
When Bitter played his first international match in January 2002, Köster, born in 2001, was one year old. Now they are working together in one of the most complicated situations in German handball. Köster scored, Bitter saved.
The biggest opponent these days is not Spain on Thursday, but the corona virus
The goalkeeper then told how he experienced the 24 hours since his emergency nomination, it was, well, quite turbulent: Monday evening, dinner with the family, a look at the cell phone, a missed call from the national coach. Then the alarm clock at 4.30 a.m., off to the airport, arrival in Bratislava, corona test. When this was negative, straight into the bus to the team. “Getting on the plane from vacation and playing 60 minutes at the European Championship is pretty much the craziest thing you can do as a handball player,” said Bitter, who became a father for the fourth time a few days ago.
The game was also unusual for Köster. He got “so many nice messages” on his cell phone, he said the morning after. He’s a little star now, has to answer questions about his girlfriend and his acquaintance with footballer Florian Wirtz, who comes from the same village and whose mother was Köster’s first handball coach.
Another surprise man: With nine goals, Christoph Steinert was the best scorer of the German team.
(Photo: Radovan Stoklasa / Reuters)
The question now is what this unexpectedly strong performance against Poland might have been worth. The German team is nominally in the main round, takes two valuable points with the win against Poland, now meets Spain, Norway, Sweden and Russia – it’s about entering the semi-finals, the chances are not bad. “I think the pressure is completely off the team now after everything that happened,” Bitter said.
But the biggest adversary these days is the corona virus, and that creates very different realities.
How and even if the German team will play against Spain on Thursday can only be said after the upcoming PCR test series. Until then, everything seems possible – most recently, the tests in the German camp have regularly produced infected players: one on Saturday, six on Monday, two on Tuesday. And now? “Waiting for the test results is the most exciting time of the day,” said Gislason. The team has shown that they can play very good handball in a new constellation in a very short time; but the game with the subsequent nominations will not work forever.
Will Julius Kühn return to the squad for the Spain game?
The Bundesliga clubs have been cooperative so far. Almost all requests that Gislason made remotely in need were approved by the clubs. Even the two Berlin handball players Paul Drux and Fabian Wiede traveled to the event, although both had deliberately decided not to attend the European Championships. If there are again a large number of positive tests, the withdrawal of the German team will be openly discussed, it is said. “All variants must be on the table,” said league manager Frank Bohmann, and Bob Hanning, boss of Füchse Berlin, also asked for a “new risk assessment” in the event of new positive cases, with regard to the continued existence of the German team at this European Championship.
The backcourt player Julius Kühn, who tested positive at the European Championship, could soon be an option again.
(Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa)
A general cancellation of the tournament is currently not up for debate, although the Corona cases are also increasing in other teams. The European Handball Federation (EHF) wants to go through with its tournament, if necessary with a record number of rounds of subsequent nominations.
In the event that everything goes well, national coach Gislason faces a completely new task. In the main round he can and will build on the many bright spots from the Poland game: on Köster, on Bitter, on the nine-time goal scorer Christoph Steinert, on the now very ripped-off playmaker Philipp Weber. Two other nominated players joined the team on Wednesday: Patrick Zieker from TVB Stuttgart as the second left winger and Daniel Rebmann (Frisch Auf Göppingen) as the second goalkeeper so that Bitter doesn’t have to play through a second time.
Then it could soon be a question of whether Gislason can schedule the first infected players again: Julius Kühn (positive test on Saturday) can undergo a PCR test from Wednesday. If two tests are negative after five days of quarantine, according to the regulation at the European Championship, he should play again against Spain. Some of the other prominent cases, such as goalkeeper Andreas Wolff or backcourt player Kai Häfner (both positive tests on Monday), could be considered again for the third main round game on Sunday against vice world champion Sweden.
Too many players for 16 squad spots? That would be a completely new task for Gislason at this European Championship. But for that to happen, everything has to go smoothly in the coming hours.
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