the paradox of Germany, “country of handball” with a selection at half mast

The France team faces Germany on Tuesday for its third match of the preliminary round. A meeting which will decide the first of group A.

Pronounce “handball” with an a, not “handboll.” The discipline, of which several European countries could claim paternity, finds its origins in Berlin where the rules were written in 1917, and finds its sources with the first men’s European championship organized in Germany. Across the Rhine, the popularity of this sport no longer needs to be demonstrated, but the national team, which the Blues face on Tuesday January 16, is no longer one of the best European nations and is in the process of restructuring.

With 53,586 spectators present in Düsseldorf for the entry into contention of their selection at the Euro, the Germans hit hard and established the world record attendance for a handball match. Could it be otherwise, when their championship, the Bundesliga, is considered the best national league in the world? And that it attracted an average of 4,858 spectators per match last season (compared to 2,547 in France according to figures communicated mid-season by the National Handball League)?

“Germany is the country of handball. The Bundesliga in handball is like the NBA in basketball. There is a fervor around this sport that there is nowhere else. We can find that in Nantes, but it remains an epiphenomenon, whereas in Germany all the halls, in all divisions, are full. Even in the fourth division, where I went to see my son play.”summarizes Christian Gaudin, former goalkeeper of the France team, who played from 1997 to 2003 across the Rhine, before returning there in 2014 to coach HSV Hamburg for a few months.

One of the best German teams, Kiel, where the Blues goalkeeper Samir Bellahcène plays “is the only club in the world to have 10,000 seats in its venue and 10,000 spectators, both in the championship and in the Champions League., adds Jérôme Fernandez, top scorer in the history of the France team, who wore the colors of this 23-time German champion club for a season. Like him, the best players in the world pass through the Bundesliga during their career. “In this league the clubs are very competitive from first to last place, so the last one can beat the first one, it’s very attractive.”comments Olaf Buchmann, editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Handball Wochewhich covers all the news in the discipline and sells 20,000 copies each week in a country which has 750,000 licensees (compared to around 450,000 recorded by the French Federation).

German players relegated to second place in their championship

However, this abundance of great players can harm the German selection. European champion and Olympic vice-champion in 2004, world champion in 2007, she has not won a major competition since Euro 2016, and has not been on the podium of a major tournament since the Games. Olympics, the same year, in Rio (Brazil). “In the best Bundesliga clubs, Germans are not key players. It is rather Danes, Swedes, French or Croatians who start. For example, in Flensburg, Johannes Golla, our captain, is the only one German player of the entire squad, analyzes Olaf Buchmann. And if we look at the left-back position, a key position, there is no German player playing in the Champions League. Juri Knorr, who is one of our best players currently, is playing in the European League [la seconde compétition européenne par ordre d’importance]”. And the situation is even worse for the women’s team, which has not been on the podium in a major competition since 2007, and whose national league is much less competitive.

With only four Euro 2016 winning players still in its squad, the Mannschaft is experiencing a generational trough which it is trying to absorb by incorporating four young junior world champion players in 2023, a performance which had not been achieved by the Germany since 2011. This title for under-21s “gives great prospects for the 2027 World Cup, which will be organized herebelieves Olaf Buchmann. But for this year, when you see the quality of the other teams, reaching the semi-finals would already be sensational.”