Next Thursday will be a defining date for the mood of the Erlangen handball players. “We are in a dangerous situation,” says Hartmut Mayerhoffer. “If we lose, it would be stupid at first,” says Carsten Bissel. The coach and chairman of the supervisory board of the handball Bundesliga team HC Erlangen are of course aware of the importance of the away game at HSG Wetzlar, and a look at the table should underline this assessment. The Middle Franconians are just above the red zone. Erlangen is third from last with 6:14 points, the relegation places are occupied by TBV Lemgo and Balingen-Weilstetten, but both have only one point less than Erlangen.
That certainly doesn’t correspond to the expectations of the ambitious Bavarian first division representative, who not only kept his squad together but also strengthened it. Actually, the Erlangen team is always fighting for a single-digit place in the table; the issue of staying in the league has either been a minor issue or been dealt with early in the past few seasons. But now another defeat would dampen the staff’s mood, even before the international break, which for the HCE extends to three weeks due to the postponed home game against Champions League winners Magdeburg: a lot of time to ponder. A success, however, would immediately move the Franconians up a notch in this extremely compact midfield and provide impetus for work on fine-tuning. The people of Erlangen have it in their own hands to avert the danger of a downward spiral and to gain self-confidence.
However, the bumpy start to the season doesn’t come entirely out of nowhere; after all, Hartmut Mayerhoffer is a new coach in a critical position. For him, he has to integrate four entrances into the new environment – which experience shows takes time. But that is in short supply in this exposed league, especially since the field has become more compact, and not just at the top end. While there are now five or six clubs that are eligible for the title, the supposedly weaker teams have also caught up significantly. An example is TVB Stuttgart, which, like Erlangen, can be rated in midfield, but has two experienced national players in its ranks in Kai Häfner and goalkeeper Silvio Heinevetter – neither of whom are certainly cheap signings. Thursday’s opponent Wetzlar is also not listed among the top clubs, but has a total of six selected players from Slovenia, Montenegro, Norway and Sweden in the team, including a strong goalkeeper duo in Anadin Suljakovic (Qatar) and Till Klimpke (Germany). The Erlangen mood test in Central Hesse is anything but a sure-fire success.
Erlanger’s problems lie on the offensive: the error rate is too high and the throwing efficiency is too low
Although the HCE has three internationally active players in Christoph Steinert (Tim Zechel was not nominated) as well as the Slovenian goalkeeper Klemen Ferlin and Jonathan Svensson (Swedish B selection), Steinert and Svensson in particular are exemplary for the state of the team. Steinert was one of the best German players at the World Cup in Poland and Sweden in January, but after a long-term injury he is running behind his “form of the last two years”, as he himself says. Svensson came from the Swedish first division club Ystadt and was also a reliable goalscorer from the backcourt in the European League. But the Bundesliga is the greatest possible test. So far, the massive right-hander has failed to prove his class, apart from his strong performance in the cup defeat against Füchse Berlin. It was also a surprising realization for Mayerhoffer: “We have found that newcomers to the Bundesliga need some time.” This also applies to Veit Mävers in the middle backcourt (from Hannover) and the Danish right winger Mads-Peter Lonborg (Kolding). The Spanish world and European champion Gedeon Guardiola (from Lemgo) has known the Bundesliga for eleven years, but the veteran, who was brought in as defense chief, is still a stranger in the Erlangen squad.
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Not working yet: Coach Hartmut Mayerhoffer is struggling with his team’s game.
(Photo: Daniel Marr/Sportfoto Zink/Imago)
The 39-year-old gets a manageable portion of the game, which is also due to the fact that the HCE defense is the best-functioning part of the team: Nikolai Link is currently playing in outstanding form and harmonizes particularly well with Sebastian Firnhaber in the inner block. Erlanger’s problems are to be found on the offensive: “Our error rate is far too high and our throwing efficiency is far too low,” explains Mayerhoffer.
Those in charge will at least give the new coach the time he needs, especially since the club has never been noticed with panicked reactions. In any case, HCE boss Bissel doesn’t want to know anything about nervousness: “I get nervous when I can’t assess a situation.” Which is not the case, because, on the one hand, Bissel knows that the process of integrating new players requires patience. On the other hand, the poor standings in the table are partly due to the game plan. Erlangen recently had to play against cup winners Rhein-Neckar Löwen, Primus Berlin, the resurgent Melsunger and Flensburg-Handewitt, all top teams. Incidentally, Mayerhoffer had nothing to do with the composition of the squad, which he doesn’t even want to think about: “There’s a lack of little things and consistency,” says the 54-year-old, and: “A win in Wetzlar would be helpful in this phase.”
