Defeat despite great performance: DEB team misses too many chances for the World Cup final

Saturday 5th June 2021

Defeat despite great performance
DEB team misses too many chances for the World Cup final

The German national ice hockey team is playing a strong World Cup semi-final. Defending champions Finland take the lead early, after which the favorite is repeatedly in distress. The DEB team is not lucky enough to get into the gold game. But the chance for bronze remains.

After the narrowly missed final dream, the world championship in Riga should end with the bronze medal for Germany’s national ice hockey team. The team of national coach Toni Söderholm lost the first World Cup semi-final in eleven years against his home country Finland just 1: 2 (0: 2, 1: 0, 0: 0). Individual mistakes and lavishly missed chances prevented the surprise success, which should now succeed in the game for third place on Sunday (2.15 p.m. / Sport1 and in the live ticker at ntv.de) against the USA. This chance of winning the first World Cup medal in 68 years remains.

“The disappointment is now very big,” said captain Moritz Müller, bent on Sport1: “We wanted to be world champions.” Striker Leo Pföderl was already looking ahead: “It’s not over yet. There is still something to win. We just have to keep going. We want to get the thing tomorrow.” Against the defending champion Finland, probably the best performance of the German team, who were once again fighting passionately, was not enough in this tournament because, among other things, the previously so confident goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger made a decisive mistake.

An overpayment hit by Matthias Plachta (32nd minute) was too little for the strong German team. For the merciless three-time world champion Finland Iiro Pakarinen (14th) and Hannes Björninen (19th) met. In the preliminary round, Germany lost almost 2-1 against the home of national coach Söderholm, his assistant coach Ville Peltonen and goalkeeping coach Ilpo Kauhanen.

“The goals were really unnecessary”

On Sunday, Germany can still achieve the best result in a world championship since 1953 in the game for the bronze medal against the USA. At that time, however, the selection of the German Ice Hockey Association won silver in the final settlement with only three participants after Czechoslovakia left early. At the 2010 home World Cup, the DEB team finished fourth. Finland has the chance to defend their title against Canada on Sunday evening (7.15 p.m.).

“Germany will be a very unpleasant opponent for the Finns today,” Söderholm said before the semi-finals. And in fact, the DEB selection was not only even, but better in the game than the favorite at the beginning. In the first third, she owned the bigger chances, but they went unused.

The three-time world champion came out of nowhere to take the lead. Ironically, the so far strong Niederberger failed in a harmless shot by Pakarinen and let the target slide through his legs into the goal. Björninen even increased to 2-0 shortly before the first break after a rebounding disc fell into the barrel after an unclean pass from Lukas Reichel to Moritz Seider. “The goals were really unnecessary,” complained NHL striker Dominik Kahun. “I definitely think we’re the better team.”

Söderholm’s prognosis has already come true

That the German team acted at least at eye level without any individual mistakes was proven in the middle section, in which Plachta scored a goal in excess. The German power play had previously been completely harmless in the tournament. There were hopes of turning a 2-0 draw against Switzerland in the quarter-finals. In the final third, Germany put pressure on again and was now overwhelmingly superior. A late compensation did not fall this time.

Despite the renewed semi-final defeat – Germany lost 2-1 to Russia in Cologne in 2010 – the World Cup is already a success and confirms the Olympic silver medal in Pyeongchang. Söderholm, the successor to Marco Sturm, failed in his first World Cup as national coach with his team in the quarter-finals against the Czech Republic (1: 5) in 2019 and from then on had set the goal of trying to survive against the top nations. Especially at this tournament, which under special circumstances rises in a bubble and without the absolute top stars due to the coronavirus pandemic, Söderholm had expected a chance of a surprise.

“It is getting closer and closer for a German national team to play a semi-final”, Söderholm had said before the World Cup in an interview with the German Press Agency in view of developments in German ice hockey – and he was right. By moving into the semifinals, Germany consolidated seventh place in the world rankings, which are important for the World Cup schedule and Olympic qualifications, and increases its lead over arch-rivals Switzerland.