If looks could hurt, Juri Knorr, Lukas Mertens and Julian Köster would now have thick blue bruises on their backs. In the best bad-boy manner, Andreas Wolff stared at them for seconds, because after parries by the German goalkeeper they did not secure the rebounds — but the opponent did: a goal for Norway!
This dark face has been known for years. From the outside, these visual confrontations feel like a slap in the face to the defensive player in question. And like a display of power by the often strangely appearing world-class goalkeeper. He is aware of his special role in the German national handball team.
In purely performance terms, he deserves it: on Saturday evening in the second group-stage game, Wolff’s 22 defensive actions helped Germany defeat Norway 30:28 (15:17) in front of nearly 11,000 people at the Jyske Bank Boxen.
“Andi has saved our backsides again,” said the top scorer, Marko Grgić (seven goals). The praised one himself was less happy: “You could see that one or two scenes didn’t please me,” he said: “Here and there there’s simply a bit of cleverness missing, on both ends.”
Game bungled and still won
At one point he shouted at Renārs Uščins, who fouled his opponent on a counterattack and received a two-minute suspension instead of letting him continue, as Wolff had demanded: “I’ll take care of it!” Just now Wolff announced to the horror of his young backline partner David Späth that he intends to keep going “until 2032,” such is his fitness. One must consider it possible that this rubber-man could still tiptoe the crossbar at 41.
It is a privilege to be allowed to “screw up” a game and still win, said Uščins with a sense of humor. This time, the best thing about the young left-hander was that his stand-in Franz Semper performed well and kept the Germans on course in the grim first half with his goals.
From the start Wolff, the 34-year-old from Kiel, was there and gnawed at the Norwegians’ minds. In the end he stopped 44 percent of their shots — a fabulous figure. From the backcourt, from the wing, from the pivot or on the counterattack, in all disciplines he was ahead and prevented a nightmare against a Norwegian team that is marked by injury misfortune and has to rely on a lot of Bundesliga-average players.
Yet the top stars Torbjörn Bergerud (goal), Tobias Gröndahl (center) and Sander Sagosen (backcourt) were enough to rattle the Germans for 30 minutes. Missed shots from all positions made their lives hard; not always did Bergerud have to intervene: some balls simply clattered past the net. Even the stubborn pivot Johannes Golla had his share of misfortune.
Next opponents: Denmark and France
Only after a five-goal lead around the 50th minute did it get better. But far from flawless. Nils Lichtlein’s orchestrations for the temporarily weak Juri Knorr and Grgić’s goals helped the Norwegians to distance themselves. “I finally managed to switch off my silly head,” Grgić said — he had found the tournament slow to start and had been considered a worry. This time he slipped into the role that Miro Schluroff occupied against Portugal. In fact, the squad’s depth is a big plus.
Later, no one spoke nicely about it. Although head coach Alfred Gislason’s seven sit at the top of the main-round Group A with 6:0 points. They only need one more win from two games to reach the semi-final on Friday. Since the opponents on Monday are Denmark and two days later France, optimism is limited: “If we play Denmark in attack like we did in the first half against Norway, we have no chance,” said Gislason.
But even if it stumbles and stumbles and one sometimes wonders what exactly the German squad is playing, because it looks so unstructured, they have achieved a minimal goal: since they cannot be displaced from third place, they have earned the fifth-place game on Friday of the final weekend in Herning.
That would only be the final for the Golden Pineapple. But who knows, if Andreas Wolff continues like this, something might be possible against the recently convincing Danes and impressively re-grouped French, even if after Saturday night’s performance it seems utopian.
