Dhe bad news for the German handball professionals does not stop. The DHB team is affected by two more corona cases at the European Championship and is going into the group final against Poland this Tuesday evening (6 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Handball Championship and on ZDF) in Bratislava with weakened personnel. A few hours before kick-off, goalkeeper Till Klimpke and Marcel Schiller also tested positive. This increased the number of Corona failures to nine players.
Goalkeeper Andreas Wolff, backcourt players Kai Häfner and Luca Witzke and outsiders Timo Kastening and Lukas Mertens all tested positive on Monday. Julius Kühn and his substitute Hendrik Wagner had previously been infected with the corona virus. All affected players have gone into quarantine. When they can be used again is still open.
National coach Alfred Gislason therefore nominated goalkeeper Johannes Bitter from HSV Hamburg and field players Fabian Wiede, Paul Drux (both Füchse Berlin), Rune Dahmke (THW Kiel) and Sebastian Firnhaber (HC Erlangen) late on Monday evening.
The quintet arrived in the German EM venue in Bratislava on Tuesday, but initially had to isolate themselves at the team hotel. After the negative results of their PCR tests were available, all of them can be used against Poland, the DHB announced. This means that Coach Gislason can use 14 players in the final game of the preliminary round of the European Championship.
For the German team, the game against Poland is about a good starting position for the main round, in which only the points from this game will be taken. Other opponents of the DHB selection in the second phase of the tournament are defending champion Spain, World Cup runner-up Sweden, Olympic bronze medalist Norway and Russia.
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