| Handball News |
Handball News  (27/01/2008) French consolation with clear victory |
France 36:26 Germany (18:9)
After a very one-sided match France got the bronze medal at the Euro 2008 as Germany showed their worst performance in years. At the end the 2006 winners took the third place against the world champions.
After the earlier injuries of Velyky and Roggisch, Germany had to replace right winger Florian Kehrmann, line player Sebastian Preiss and right back Christian Zeitz as well.
As a result, Stefan Schröder and Rolf Herrmann debuted at the Euro.
On the other side, the line player Bertrand Gille was out.
In addition to all these problems, the German center back, Markus Baur, slipped on the floor and had to be substituted early in the game.
After 30 minutes the result was 18:9 for France, after minute 23 the French team was leading by a ten goal margin for the first time.
The counter attacks of Daniel Narcisse, Olivier Girault and Luc Abalo were especially dangerous, all German mistakes were punished by a goal.
In fact, Germany made many mistakes. They could hardly catch the ball at times and very few shots ended up in the net.
France – with their good goalkeeper Thierry Omeyer – could easily decide the match and slow down for the eighth match in eleven days.
After the break France even increased the gap to 13 goals at the score of 25:12. The German performance was unchanged: mistake came after mistake.
Germany could only come closer when France laid back and the goals of left winger Torsten Jansen were coming easily in this period.
However, it was obvious that France could not be beaten today with Nikola Karabatic leading the squad. This was the second French victory over the world champions this Euro and the players celebrated their medal with smile on their faces after the great disappointment a day ago.
French top scorer was Olivier Girault with eight goals and Torsten Jansen was the most successful German player with seven.
Post match statements
Claude Onesta (French coach): “We are very happy to have won the Bronze medal. We did not expect this match to be so easy and decided so early. But Germany had a lot of problems. Now we are glad to have won and that this – mostly successful – tournament is over for us.”
Heiner Brand (German coach): “This was a disaster. You can lose against France, but not this way. We never had any chance, as the players did not have any spirit to win. After the injury of Markus Baur I knew that we didn’t have any chance. Beside this my balance is positive until yesterday evening. We got to the semi-final – and then it’s always bad when you finish a tournament with two defeats.”
Thierry Omeyer (French player): “Last year in Germany we lost the Bronze final, this year we won. It’s always good to return home with a medal. I think, we played a good tournament, but we were disappointed after losing the semi-final.”
Torsten Jansen (German player): “This match was a complete catastrophy. The only good thing in this match was the final whistle. After the semi-final we were optimistic to have a chance, but in the end we had to be very disappointed with this match.” |
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