If looks could hurt, Juri Knorr, Lukas Mertens and Julian Köster would now have big bruises on their backs. In the best bad boy style, Andreas Wolff stared at them for seconds because after saves by the German goalkeeper they didn’t get the rebound – but the opponent did: goal for Norway!
The dark face has been known for years. From outside, these visual encounters seem like a slap in the face for the respective defensive player. And like a demonstration of power from the world-class goalkeeper, who often appears strange. He is aware of his special role in the German national handball team.
In terms of performance alone, he fully deserves it: On Saturday evening in the second main round game, Wolff’s 22 defensive actions helped defeat Norway 30:28 (15:17) in front of almost 11,000 people in the “Jyske Bank Boxen”.
“Andi saved our butts again,” said the top goalscorer, Marko Grgić (seven goals). The praised man himself was less happy: “You could see that one scene or another didn’t excite me,” he said: “Here and there there’s just a bit of cleverness missing, at the front and back.”
Game wasted and still won
Once he shouted at Renārs Uščins, who fouled his opponent on a counterattack and received a two-minute penalty instead of letting him go, as Wolff had demanded: “I’ll do it!” Wolff has just announced, to the horror of his young backer David Späth, that he wants to continue “until 2032” because he is so fit. One has to believe it is possible that this rubber man Even at the age of 41, he can still get his toes on the crossbar.
It was a privilege to be able to “fail” a game and still win, said Uščins with a sense of humor. The best thing about the young left-hander this time was that his deputy Franz Semper did well and kept the Germans on track with his goals in the bad first half.
From the beginning Wolff was, the 34 year old from Kiel, there and crawled into the heads of the Norwegians. In the end, he had fended off 44 percent of their throws – a fabulous figure. From behind, from outside, from the circle or on the counter-attack, he was ahead in all disciplines and prevented a nightmare against a Norwegian team that is plagued by bad luck with injuries and has to rely on a lot of the Bundesliga’s middle class.
But the top players Torbjörn Bergerud (goal), Tobias Grondahl (center) and Sander Sagosen (backcourt) were enough to shake the Germans for 30 minutes. Missed throws from all positions made life difficult for them; Bergerud didn’t always have to intervene: some balls simply hit the mat behind the goal. Even the indomitable cyclist Johannes Golla suffered from this.
Next opponents: Denmark and France
Things only got better when they took a five-goal lead around the 50th minute. But by no means error-free. Nils Lichtlein’s direction for Juri Knorr, who was weak this time, and Grgić’s goals helped to distance the Norwegians. “I finally got my stupid head out of my head,” said Grgić – he had been slow to get into the tournament and was considered a problem child. This time he slipped into the role that Miro Schluroff filled against Portugal. In fact, the breadth of the squad is a big plus.
Later, no one said anything nice. National coach Alfred Gislason’s seven are at the top of main round group A with 6-0 points. They only need one win from two games to reach the semi-finals on Friday. Since the opponents on Monday are Denmark and two days later France, confidence is limited: “If we play against Denmark in attack like we did in the first half against Norway, we have no chance,” said Gislason.
But even if it bumps and stumbles and you sometimes wonder, What the German selection is playing there, because it looks so unstructured, they have achieved a minimal goal: Since she can no longer be pushed out of third place, she reached the game for fifth place on Friday of the final weekend in Herning.
That would just be the final for the Golden Pineapple. But who knows, if Andreas Wolff continues like this, something could be possible against the recently convincing Danes and the impressively regrouped French – even if it seems utopian after Saturday evening’s performance.