“Mertens makes a huge game”
A new top decision-maker for the DHB team
By Till Erdenberger
01/16/2023 7:06 p.m
Lukas Mertens makes a “huge game” for the German national handball team at the right time: against Serbia, the left winger paves the way for the DHB team through the World Cup. A faux pas by the 26-year-old does not change that.
The German national handball team conceded 33 goals in the important World Cup preliminary round match against Serbia. And 33 goals, that’s way too many. Actually. In its long history, the DHB team has never won a World Cup game by conceding more than 30 goals after 60 minutes. In 2023 the time had come because the German team led the whole game in a wild target shooting game and in the end saved a narrow lead to the finish. It had to be 34 goals. It was enough because goalkeeper Joel Birlehm saved four free throws in the last ten minutes and because Lukas Mertens delivered a dream rate that had not previously been considered as a top decision-maker in the ensemble of national coach Alfred Gislason.
Seven tries, seven hits: It couldn’t be more effective at the highest level and that’s a miracle rate, especially for the outside. Players have split seconds to decide whether to fly into the circle to throw, ball in hand. A maximum of three quick steps, a short flight, zero time to hesitate. Once the decision is made, there is no going back. If they land in a circle, the ball is gone. With the opponent or in the goal. The gate, however, is nowhere smaller on the field than from the outside, the angle that opens varies depending on the trajectory. Scoring goals from the outside is very, very complicated – “especially when you know that in the first half he threw four times against Vladimir Cupara from a relatively small angle and hit everyone very confidently,” said national coach Gislason at Sport1 after the game about his left winger and added: “Cupara is one of the best in the world from the outside. Mertens is playing a great game.”
“I’ll remember that more often”
Since the departure of Uwe Gensheimer, who was undoubtedly one of the best left wingers in the world, the DHB team has been longing for a permanent solution out there on the left wing. Gensheimer had ended his often unfortunate national team career after the 2021 World Cup, after which Matthias Musche and Marcel Schiller, two experienced people, tried their hand at the position without being able to play firmly. Schiller had injured himself in the current Bundesliga season, became fit again – and later became one of the “hardship cases” in the nomination. Gislason relied on Lukas Mertens as the clear number one, the far more experienced Schiller had to stay at home – and is said to have been not at all enthusiastic about it.
The 1.82 meter tall Mertens from Wilhelmshaven now has 16 international matches in the statistics. The fact that there are no more is also due to the corona virus: At the Chaos EM 2022, a positive test took him out of the tournament after the second game, Mertens did not return. Now he uses the time to make himself indispensable. Gislason relies fully on Mertens, who threw his SC Magdeburg to the championship title and to defend the title at the Club World Cup last season. Four goals against Qatar to start, seven against Serbia. Good advertisement.
Spectacular identification figure
It’s not just the odds, it’s also the way the 26-year-old scores his goals: Unlike the Gensheimer, who sometimes seems to be equipped with a rubber joint, who either snipped the balls into the goal, stroked them, at least mostly artfully sunk, Mertens comes even more over the bounce and the precision with great dynamics. Against Qatar, Mertens artistically fished a long pass from Simon Ernst out of the air and slammed it into the goal from a long distance with the half-time siren. “I couldn’t have imagined that it was so blatant. It was a cool goal – and then my first at a World Cup. I’ll remember it more often,” he enthused after the opening game.
He now repeated the goal almost exactly against Serbia: Against world-class goalkeeper Cupara, who rushed back into the goal in a manpowered action, the German recognized the situation and worked the ball from the backcourt into the top corner of the goal. Before that, the outside jumper had served teammate Christoph Steinert to the Kempatrick before half-time. Actions that excite the fans. The DHB team is once again on a mission that goes beyond sport.
“It is our goal to inspire people – and success is part of it,” said captain Johannes Golla in an interview with ntv.de. “We want to show good handball that people say, this is the team that represents us, we like to watch them. If we can do that, we’ll automatically draw attention to handball.” 6.27 million people watched the game against Serbia, which was so important for the further progress of the tournament. “This victory gives confidence and can still be very valuable for us,” said Gislason. Veteran Philipp Weber enthused: “A lot has grown together in a short time. Everyone does their best and is their man,” said the 30-year-old. “By now everyone has us on their toes. They won’t underestimate us anymore.” The team will certainly take the full four points into the main round – another win in three games could be enough to make it into the quarter-finals.
“… then I was Dominik Klein”
When Lukas Mertens came up for an interview on ARD, persistent “Lukas Mertens” chants could be heard in the background – as was the case during the game. They visibly embarrassed the professional, just as the unfamiliar position next to the ARD expert Dominik Klein made him a little happy: he had a jersey from Christian Zeitz from THW Kiel, he told the magazine “Bock auf Handball”, “but when we played handball, I was Dominik Klein or Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson.” Klein, world champion of 2007, could now look forward to the presentation of his successor on the left wing. The former Kieler reported “eye contact during a celebration where you know exactly what you want to convey.” For seven out of seven, the message was clear.
At the end of a turbulent evening, which had 67 goals in store without even changing the lead once in between, it almost went unnoticed that national coach Gislason easily moderated an ultimately inconsequential faux pas Mertens’: “Once he didn’t want to leave the field, that cost us a bit,” he commented to Sport1 with a smile on a mistake made by his top scorer of the evening. The unnecessary outnumbered this time ultimately had no consequences. Four goals from Serbia’s right winger Bogdan Radivojevic over the defense of the celebrated crowd favorite could have been expensive. But because Lukas Mertens offensively delivered the biggest game of his DHB career at exactly the right time, the German national team ultimately kept its head up in the flood of goals.