Handball – the dangerous dominance of the eternal world champion Denmark

The 29th World Handball Championship has created many wonderful moments, produced a lot of great pictures and provided great emotions. In Zagreb, Herning and Oslo, the sport emphasized its fascination with emphasis, but also revealed the deficits on the way to a global sport. Full halls with a great atmosphere were only available when the respective host competed. The games of Croatia, Denmark and Norway had spectator numbers in the five -digit range, when the guests encounters the guests were rarely half full.

This was particularly blatant in Oslo, where two quarter -finals, a semi -finals and the final were also held on Sunday evening. The Unity Arena was oversized for these encounters because the Norwegian handball players had already left. Where at the beginning King Harald V was still a guest, the final phase of this tournament no longer met Norwegian handball fan. An unexpected defeat against Brazil at the start of the tournament and another against the surprise team from Portugal, who narrowly lost the small final against France with 34:35, had swept away the Norwegian euphoria.

“It is certainly not good for handball,” said Andreas Michelmann, President of the German Handball Association (DHB) and in two years the host of the next World Cup. “We absolutely have to do that in Germany.” In this respect, it was good that at least the Danes and the Croatians who can build on their supporters could almost completely fill the competition on the former airport site fornebu in the Peripherie Oslos on the final day. While the fans were amazed at the bristle at the venue, their handball players conjured up their enthusiasm in their soul. Never before has a team become as confident world champion as the selection of Denmark. After numerous grandiose appearances, they left no doubt about their supremacy in the final. With 32:26 they dismantled the team of coach Dagur Sigurdsson, who once led the German team to the European championship title in 2016.

“We are really difficult to beat at the moment,” said Mathias Gidel. The left -hander from the Füchsen Berlin is a “Most Valuable Player” and top scorer of the tournament something like the measure of things in world handball. “I think it’s the best national team ever in handball. Incredible to be part of it. «Tempo, creativity and individual quality: This is characterized by the Danes, which had arrived at the World Cup as world champion and Olympic champion and has now won the title for the fourth time in a row. The team in red and white has not lost a World Cup game for eight years and scored an average of twelve goals at this tournament than its respective opponents. “Gähnemark” had titled a boulevard newspaper in view of the oppressive superiority of the Danish handball players.

Nikolaj Jacobsen stands on the sidelines, a man who shows the ease of being, but demands sharp and emphatic performance from his players. After speeches from him, you almost feel the urge to get up and change the world. “I’m not that bad,” said Jacobsen, for whom it is also the fourth World Cup triumph in a row and who is fully loved by its players. “I just can’t help it on the sidelines.”

So while the Danes celebrated in Oslo on Sunday evening, the German Tross had been at home for a long time. For the team of Alfred Gislason it was a World Cup with a donkey ear. Once again. It had returned from the Olympic Games with silver in summer, started as a candidate for the medal in these title fights – and ultimately left Portugal in the quarter -finals. It was the dreary end of a business trip without any shine.

After the days of Paris, the associationsberen had proclaimed a better future that the German “decade of handball” was supposed to give the national team. A safe semi-final candidate with numerous highly gifted players such as Juri Knorr, Renars Uscins, David Späth, Nils Lichtlein and some more you wanted to be. But tired and battered actors dragged themselves through a World Cup in which they were far from the necessary form. Everything seemed difficult, even the defense – otherwise the showpiece in the German game – was Windschief.

If the DHB team competes for the home World Cup in 2027, it will be 20 years ago that a German team was able to win a World Cup medal. Bob Hanning, Manager of Foxes Berlin and for a few days now the new national coach of the second World Cup surprise Italy, summed it up: “This World Cup was a step backwards.”