Swiss national team coach Andy Schmid has mixed feelings after the Yellow Cup in Winterthur, the main rehearsal for the World Championship. The shock of Manuel Zehnder's injury is still lingering.
06.01.2025, 06:43
06.01.2025, 07:55
SDA
The Swiss finished the traditional tournament in 2nd place after beating Kosovo (34:24) and the Netherlands (34:33) and losing to Italy (29:31) in the opening game. Schmid was satisfied with the overall performance. "The game against Italy perhaps came too early for us. Otherwise we played very well twice in phases," he told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
The fact that he had one laughing and one crying eye was due to the loss of playmaker Manuel Zehnder. Last season's top scorer in the Bundesliga tore his cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and meniscus in his left knee against Italy and has a long rehabilitation ahead of him. The team was deeply shocked. It took until the next game to digest it, says Luka Maros. "The win against Kosovo helped to shake it off."
Having an anchor
With eight goals, Kadetten Schaffhausen's set-up man played a key role in the fantastic success against the tournament winners and last year's European Championship runners-up, the Netherlands. However, it was also down to Maros that the opponents found their way back into the game after trailing 9:14 (21st), as they made three technical errors before the break (16:16). Maros said self-critically that they needed to have an anchor to hold on to in nervous phases and not try something new. "We have to be simple and straightforward."
Schmid spoke of a different structure in the game, as no one in the team can match the individual class of Manuel Zehnder. Those who have to replace him, however, have other qualities. "We try to put these together to form a good puzzle. If everyone contributes their strengths, we have a lot of class. Everyone is very willing and very ambitious. The fact that certain things are working gives me a good feeling. We have an exciting time ahead of us."
Training camp in Stans
The 23-year-old Mehdi Ben Romdhane made a very good start as a replacement for Manuel Zehnder. Felix Aellen still has room for improvement. From Tuesday, the team will be putting the finishing touches to their preparations for the World Cup in Stans, including a test match against BSV Bern on Thursday. Next Monday, the team will travel to Denmark via Frankfurt. They will be staying in Silkeborg, which is just over half an hour's drive from the venue in Herning. Their opponents in the preliminary round are the Czech Republic (January 15), Germany (January 17) and Poland (January 19). The top three in the group advance to the main round.
"The World Cup will be something completely different in terms of mindset and pressure," emphasizes Schmid. "I want the young players to soak up the emotions and the feeling of a World Cup without any worries. Light-heartedness is a success factor. If you don't think too much, you intuitively get a lot of things right. That's our goal. But there's a fine line between that and nonchalance." However, optimism is certainly warranted after the win against the Netherlands.
