Playmaker with no alternative
Dangerous game drives DHB team to the brink
By Till Erdenberger, Cologne
January 19, 2024, 10:22 a.m
The German national handball team wins a vital victory at the home European Championships, the best goalscorer against Iceland is Juri Knorr. The playmaker is irreplaceable in the DHB team squad. This poses a great risk.
Juri Knorr is an extraordinary player: the director of the German national handball team is predicted to have a world-class career; the 23-year-old is expected to fulfill German handball’s dreams of being a world-class playmaker. This is what we’ve been waiting for in this country since Markus Baur led the DHB team to the world championship title in 2007. At the current home European Championship, Knorr is the hosts’ top scorer in every game so far, with 30 goals after four games he leads the tournament’s top scorer list. His possibilities seem unlimited, as does his importance for the German team. And that can be a problem.
For the German team, every game is about sporting survival; every defeat means that their dreams of their first medal since Olympic bronze in 2016 are dashed. Knorr scored six times against Iceland at the start of the main round, but had a weaker day. This is one of the reasons why 19,750 spectators in the sold-out arena in Cologne had to tremble and suffer until the last seconds before victory was certain: 26:24, a battle of nerves, extremely physical. A loss of points would have been a world record game at the start of this European Championship of superlatives! Strong TV ratings! Almost 100% capacity utilization of the halls! – means a huge setback. For the ambitions of the German team anyway.
The Northmen made it difficult for Knorr, they were well prepared for the game of the dangerous director. “It’s a very unpleasant game because the Icelanders play a very aggressive, offensive defense that prevents us from flowing the game,” DHB sports director Axel Kromer had already analyzed at halftime. It was a tough game for Knorr, who repeatedly tried to force his way through the defense, as his counterpart Aron Palmarsson did so often.
Hard work in the cauldron
In the final phase of a handball thriller, Knorr, who had previously sunk eleven of twelve seven meters during the tournament, failed twice from the line to Björgvin Páll Gústavsson. Missed throws that were only not expensive because on the other side Andreas Wolff, who was outstanding in the decisive phases of this battle of attrition between two nervous teams, saved two Icelandic seven meters. In the end, the huge arena in Cologne celebrated the goalkeeper who kept a nervous DHB team in the tournament.
No, the start of the main round was not Juri Knorr’s game. The highly talented man was suitably served; after the celebrations after the thriller, he disappeared past the waiting journalists into the cabin. Usually the playmaker in demand is one of the last to reach the locker room. He doesn’t just present himself in triumph, he judges himself harshly, leaves no questions unanswered, no questions unanswered. Just not this time.
In the cauldron of the Lanxess Arena, Knorr was on the pitch for exactly 50 minutes, he toiled in defense and attack. For comparison: For the French, who are praised for their huge squad depth, playmaker Nedim Remili only had to play for a little more than half an hour in the wild battle against Croatia (34:32), while representative Kentin Mahé took eleven minutes for two goals. In the German team, the burden rests on the shoulders of the 1.92 meter powerhouse Juri Knorr.
The Rhein-Neckar Löwen professional wants to help his team, even if things aren’t going well for him. He has minimized the number of wild throws and costly mistakes that had made the national coach furious last January. “I can’t go too crazy,” he recently told “Stern”. DHB assistant coach Erik Wudtke said that you “sometimes have to protect Yuri from himself. You have to tell him every now and then: Juri, you can’t save the world. You’re not responsible for everything.”
And yet: The German backcourt, which is a well-known challenge, lacks the format that spreads international terror, especially in terms of width, and opposing defenses can too often work on Knorr, this exciting player on the way to world class. The playmaker’s exceptional position means the gap behind him is wide. If he weakens, the German game suffers. If he isn’t even on the field, quality is lost. This is unavoidable and simply cannot be compensated for.
“Ideal complement” is missing
The Iceland game, the first of four finals on the way to the long-awaited semi-final, clearly showed how there is no alternative to his most important player for the national coach and the German game: When Knorr took a break, it was in defense. In attack he almost played through, Alfred Gíslason even completely forewent the use of the experienced representative Philipp Weber in view of Knorr struggling with himself and the Icelanders. Against France, Gíslason brought Weber on for a few minutes. And he obviously didn’t agree with what he saw in the long term. The national coach apparently still lacks confidence in the inexperienced Lichtlein, who only slipped into the squad after Hannover’s Marian Michalczik was injured, at the highest level. The U21 world champion didn’t even make it onto the score sheet. The national coach had reacted to the findings from the France game, when the German team had visibly run out of strength at the end: He sent seven (!) different backcourt players onto the field in the first half, only his playmaker was spared from the rotation.
With Luca Witzke there should be a “very ideal complement to Juri Knorr” (Gíslason) in the squad; the playmaker from Leipzig “could have become a very important player for us”. But Witzke, who formed the playmaker team with Knorr at the last World Cup and made a big impact himself, did not manage to get into European Championship shape in time after an injury break. So Juri Knorr has to fight his way through because he is irreplaceable. And it’s always good for a big moment. But it’s a dangerous game.
The final sequence of this thriller against Iceland, which ended in ecstasy and pure relief, was emblematic of the game: Iceland had reduced the score to one goal with 40 seconds to go, and the German team had to hold onto the ball against open man coverage – and then slipped Juri Knorr in the center circle with the ball in his hand. In this moment of shock, he “saw the whole tournament passing by in my mind’s eye,” said experienced left winger Rune Dahmke. But Knorr brought the ball to Julian Köster in a controlled manner while lying down, who fought the ball into the goal to make the final score 26:24. The trust in the playmaker is unlimited and in the end it was rewarded again. “I think this game brought an incredible amount to the team,” said the relieved national coach after the nerve-wracking game. It went well again.