When Johannes Bitter builds up in front of a thrower, the goal shrinks to the size of a doghouse. Many top handball players have had this experience, most recently at the European Handball Championships in Hungary and Slovakia. The 39-year-old goalkeeper was called up and unnerved the Polish throwers in the last group game. Johannes Sellin had to get to know this feeling on Thursday evening when he scored the decisive penalty in his Erlangen’s Bundesliga game at HSV Hamburg. Bitter made his 2.05 meter frame even taller than he already is by getting a few steps out of his goal. With success, with his left upper arm he parried Sellin’s not bad seven-meter throw, Hamburg won the Bundesliga game against Middle Franconia with 30:29 goals.
It was the first points for the Hanseatic League this year, who overtook the guests and are now in eleventh place with 18:26 points. HC Erlangen had previously occupied him, he fell back to 13th place and missed the great opportunity to move closer to the top half of the table. For the HCE it’s a season like a roller coaster ride, a season of missed opportunities that cost coach Michael Haass his position at the beginning of the year. Strong performances are followed with unsightly regularity by inexplicable mistakes, fueled of course by many injuries and exceptional situations caused by corona. An inconvenience that the competition also has to deal with.
In Hamburg, Haass successor Raul Alonso once again had to do without Steffen Fäth, who has been struggling with various injuries throughout the season. In Christoph Steinert, an important goalscorer is missing, who incidentally was the top scorer with nine goals in the mentioned game of the German selection against Poland alongside Bitter. Left winger Christopher Bissel was also absent, he is currently taking his first state exam in law.
“It was up to us”: Erlangen’s playmaker Nico Büdel doesn’t even look for excuses
For playmaker Nico Büdel, however, the defeat was homemade: “We got on well and played very concentrated, then we made Hamburg strong with a few lack of concentration and brought them back into the game.” In fact, the Erlangen started very confidently, the defense was solid, the attack was combined and safely completed – for 15 minutes. The HCE led 7:3 and seemed to be in control of what was happening, but was completely thrown off course by a few dropouts. It was also noticeable that even the strong acting Simon Jeppsson, with eight goals and seven assists the best player on the floor, and Antonio Metzner (seven goals) with bad passes or failed attempts joined the Erlangen error chain.
The first half of the game was a reflection of the previous season, all of a sudden and without any understandable reason, a collective uncertainty spread. Alonso called a time-out (20th minute) to loudly remind the players that they were neglecting basic virtues: “They don’t do anything else, but we don’t run anymore.” Only three minutes later he called to the sidelines again, now his appeal sounded more dramatic: “I see fear in your eyes.” At this point, Hamburg had already turned the game around with a 6-0 run. At least Sellin and Sebastian Firnhaber were able to keep the half-time deficit within limits at 13:15.
After the change, it was “a game on an equal footing”, analyzed Büdel, who repeatedly threw himself into the duels, took a lot and offered a good performance with four goals. And Erlangen came back easily and equalized, from then on the lead changed back and forth until the HCE was 29:28 ahead two and a half minutes before the end. At 29:29, Sellin stepped to the seven-meter point – and missed. In return, Hamburg’s top player Casper Mortensen, world champion and Olympic champion with Denmark and who returned to the Spree from FC Barcelona before the season, did better with his penalty throw, Sellin became a tragic figure.
But the defeat is by no means to be pinned down to him, Büdel thought so too, and didn’t want to use Jeppson’s absence ten minutes before the end as an excuse: “Of course he’s a top player and was missing, but we had it in our own hands, we just have to create our chances. That was up to us.” You have to “think about it”. Due to the international break, Erlangen now has almost two weeks before Göppingen makes a guest appearance in the Nuremberg Arena on March 24th.
