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Page 1 — When the world record setting becomes a danger
Page 2 — The respect for playing against Germany in Germany
Anyone who, like the Icelandic Alfreð Gíslason, has been involved in a sport for more than 40 years can be assumed to have experienced and seen everything. As a player, the handball player was a tough dog; they sometimes feared coach Gíslason because of his “insult tour” when he spoke in the locker room. The national coach is one of the most successful and most traveled handball coaches in the world. He moved his sport from the better city sports halls in Iceland to the multifunctional arenas of the modern era. And so you might think that nothing overwhelms him anymore. And yet he recently said: “What awaits our team and our staff in Düsseldorf will be completely new territory for everyone.” He unintentionally sounded like Angela Merkel when she spoke about the Internet in 2013.
The European Handball Championship in Germany will start this Wednesday with a world record. 54,000 spectators are expected at the German national team’s opening game against Switzerland, with ZDF broadcasting at prime time (kick-off: 8:45 p.m.). The association has been gearing everything towards this day for years. They got the European Championship with the promise of doing something special: expanding the Düsseldorf football stadium by 9,000 seats and placing a handball parquet in the middle. Everything for the big goal of igniting euphoria again like the 2007 World Cup victory in our own country and the 2019 home World Cup.
The home advantage: is it one?
As in only a few other sports, in handball you can gain a decisive advantage with your own audience. The cheers and whistles that the Cologne crowd gave during the 2007 World Cup semi-final against France could probably have been heard in Paris back then. Something like that can work. For example, in decisions made by referees who may subconsciously interpret tricky scenes at high speed in the home team’s favor. Or when the opposing seven-meter thrower starts to think at the last second whether he wants to throw the ball past the goalkeeper from the top left or bottom right. In handball, egged on by the audience, you can play yourself into a frenzy that is difficult to stop with skill alone.
The handball players had two training sessions before the opening game in the Düsseldorf football stadium. © Federico Gambarini/dpa
Handball is a bet on emotions. Former national player Stefan Kretzschmar has a saying that he likes to quote again and again because it is simply true: “Handball is played with the hand, but decisions are made in the head.” And that’s what they hope for at the DHB. The smallest arena in which this tournament is played is the Munich Olympiahalle with 11,000 seats. The German team will not compete there, but in Düsseldorf, Berlin (17,000 seats) and Cologne (20,000 seats).
“I’m especially looking forward to the atmosphere here, which is better than in any other handball country in the world,” says national coach Gíslason. He experienced the 2007 World Cup in Germany as the Icelandic national coach: “I’m sure it will be something very special this time too,” he adds.
“We took advantage of it”
But of course there is also the other side that these backdrops, which are so huge for handball, bring with them. In the worst case, it inhibits competing in front of your own fans – just think of Brazil’s 7-1 defeat in the World Cup semi-finals. Henning Fritz, former world handball player and goalkeeper of the 2007 world champion team, once talked about how difficult the start to the 2007 home tournament was: “It really hampered us back then, especially at the beginning of the tournament,” said Fritz. “But at some point we took advantage of the home advantage, took the audience with us and aroused emotions – because we gradually let go of the tension and became more relaxed.”
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Gíslason himself says that it is impossible to simulate such scenarios even halfway adequately. Nevertheless, he is optimistic: “I hope that we can concentrate on the sport as quickly as possible once the game is underway. It’s the same field with the same dimensions and the same rules as usual.”
Nevertheless, it is one of the big questions before the start of the tournament: How will Gíslason’s team cope with the constant observation? He has put together a young, inexperienced squad. Seven of the sixteen nominees are 24 years old or younger, four of them, David Späth, Nils Lichtlein, Martin Hanne and Renars Uscins, won the U21 World Cup title last year. Hanne actually made his very first international match in the European Championship friendly against Portugal. At 26, captain Johannes Golla is one of the most experienced players; of the victorious European champions from 2016, only goalkeeper Andreas Wolff, pivot Jannik Kohlbacher and backcourt player Kai Häfner remain. It is these four who have more than two or three appearances in major tournaments. The most experienced field player, outside Patrick Groetzki, was injured in the last friendly and will miss the European Championships.
Anyone who, like the Icelandic Alfreð Gíslason, has been involved in a sport for more than 40 years can be assumed to have experienced and seen everything. As a player, the handball player was a tough dog; they sometimes feared coach Gíslason because of his “insult tour” when he spoke in the locker room. The national coach is one of the most successful and most traveled handball coaches in the world. He moved his sport from the better city sports halls in Iceland to the multifunctional arenas of the modern era. And so you might think that nothing overwhelms him anymore. And yet he recently said: “What awaits our team and our staff in Düsseldorf will be completely new territory for everyone.” He unintentionally sounded like Angela Merkel when she spoke about the Internet in 2013.
