After the 17:17 against the Czech Republic, the Swiss will face Olympic silver medalists Germany in their second World Championship match in Herning on Friday at 20:30. This time they want to at least challenge their arch-rivals.
17.01.2025, 05:00
17.01.2025, 07:44
SDA
As good as their defense was against the Czechs, the Swiss played inefficiently in attack. They cannot afford to miss so many shots against the Germans, otherwise they will suffer their third defeat in a row against the DHB team after losing 14:27 at the European Championship finals and 26:35 in the European Championship qualifiers last year. That would be fatal, as it may well be the goal difference that ultimately decides whether the Swiss reach the main round (the first three in each group) or not - their third opponent in the preliminary round is Poland on Sunday.
"Germany don't suit us," admits Swiss national coach Andy Schmid candidly. "They play a very physical brand of handball with a lot of speed and have a stable defense that defines them. That causes us difficulties." They also have one of the best goalkeepers in the world in Andreas Wolff. In last year's two duels, the 33-year-old made a total of 31 saves! Schmid doesn't want to address this fact: "The more you talk about something, the more you think about it."
For the five-time Bundesliga MVP, however, the main problem in last year's two duels was that they twice went into the games with the wrong approach. "We wanted to play Courant-normal handball twice against a nation against whom we had no chance in nine out of ten games. We also had the perception that we were on an equal footing. I think it's okay to accept being clearly inferior on paper. That's a fact. They are better than us everywhere. Our chance is to find a niche that we can exploit. We can't go into a game more light-hearted than against Germany, nobody expects us to win."
