After attacks against the captain: DHB and Gensheimer get really angry

Sunday January 24th 2021

After attacks against the captain
DHB and Gensheimer get really angry

Captain Uwe Gensheimer vehemently rejects the sometimes harsh criticism of his performance at the Handball World Cup. He even speaks of resentment and envy. The left winger had not even rudimentarily exhausted his world-class potential in Egypt. There was criticism from home for this.

Uwe Gensheimer was annoyed. Again this topic, again the captain of the German handball players was under attack. "Oh, actually I don't feel like answering the question", Gensheimer grumbled on Saturday evening when he was asked about the criticism from home on TV: "The statistics speak for themselves. I know that I play handball better can. "

Off the field, Gensheimer is in defense mode. Again. On Sunday, the left winger followed up in a remarkable association announcement. "I find the constant external criticism disrespectful and lacking in appreciation. What is brought to our national team from outside in no way corresponds to my values ​​or the cohesion and spirit of our team", Gensheimer is quoted in it, to which the DHB was forced.

DHB sports director Axel Kromer also chose a sharp rhetoric and described the interpretations of the ZDF interview, in which Gensheimer spoke of "resentment and envy" in response to his critics, as "deliberate misunderstanding". Gensheimer said his testimony was not directed at his teammates, but solely with external critics. "I have never spoken negatively about players and coaches and I will not do so. Anyone who thinks I am bad is wrong.

"Maybe it's too much for him?"

On the record, however, Gensheimer also seems strangely inhibited in his seventh major tournament as captain. "Maybe it's too much for him: to be an important player and captain of the team. His body language amazes me," said Markus Baur, DHB captain at the 2007 German World Cup, the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" and the "Stuttgarter Nachrichten" "said and thus sowed doubts as to whether Gensheimer is still the right person in his role as captain.

National coach Alfred Gislason doesn't want such discussions to arise in the first place. Gensheimer's office is "not up for discussion at all – on the contrary: he does his job internally as a captain very well," said the DHB coach on Sunday. Team-mate Kai Häfner also jumped aside "Gense": "He is absolutely respected in the team as a captain, he fulfills the position sensationally." Häfner "can't imagine a better captain". Gensheimer is annoyed by this debate, which has been simmering for years.

Gensheimer's quiet criticism of fellow players

His eleven tournament goals in the previous four World Cup games do not match his usual hit rate. "Here and there our game could be geared a little more towards the left wing position from the Halben," said Gensheimer, thereby gently criticizing his teammates: "There is more on the right. But sometimes it is just like that. It is like it is."

Since 2014, the highly talented, who won titles en masse at club level, has been captain of the German team, and in Egypt he will contest his seventh tournament as the team's leader. His qualities are undisputed, in 194 international matches he scored a staggering 934 times – but so far he simply does not want to succeed with the national team. Gensheimer was not injured in the 2016 European Championship, and the tournament on the Nile was not his. Even the insignificant sporting World Cup against Poland on Monday (8.30 p.m. / ARD) should not change that.