The story will start from today
One of the host teams is hoping to repeat their great triumph of 2007 at the Men's Handball World Championship, which starts today. 12 years ago the German national handball team created a lot of wonderful moments when they started out as a blatant outsider and then surprisingly and brilliantly won the title at the last world championship in their own country. This year the games will take place in Germany and Denmark, so the two neighboring countries are hosting the tournament together for the very first time.
In 2007, coach Brand had put together a young team, without any real world stars, but with exactly the right instinct. The whole of Germany had fallen into a handball euphoria, the halls were well filled and a million spectators watched the matches on TV.
In the final, the Polish team was defeated, against whom they had to accept the only defeat in the preliminary round. And then Germany became world champion and the winter fairy tale was perfect.
And that's exactly where they'd like to pick up this year. But before the start of the World Championships the atmosphere in the nation and the team is still rather quiet and it will soon turn out whether the German team will be able to create the same great aura as 12 years ago.
Handball is not football and the time in cold January is probably not the best. And after the early elimination at the last European Championships, coach Prokop was already in trouble and had kinda broken up with team and the German handball association.
But he is still on the sidelines of the field and shall lead the German team to another success at this tournament as well.
Quite some difficult conditions to start with but every success story needs to begin at some point .
The opening match in Berlin tonight will be the teams from Germany and Korea and afterwards in Copenhagen there will be the match Chile against Denmark. The Danes are among the top favourites alongside France and are more than eager to show what they are capable of in front of their own audience and perhaps go as far as winning the title
Chile, on the other hand, is a clear outsider, but has at least a player trio in its ranks, which has attracted particular attention in Germany and has already played in German handball leagues. Erwin, Harald and Emil Feuchtmann are the descendants of German emigrants and with their names would also fit into the German team. Whether it will come to a meeting with the German team is rather questionable, but perhaps the Chileans can make for the big first surprise at this tournament.
The German team will play against the teams from France, Brazil, Russia, Serbia and a joint team from both Koreas in the preliminary round and should probably be able to enter the main round.
There they will have to prove that they have really overcome the debacle of the last European Championship when they were eliminated early in the main stage.
Reaching the semi-finals would already be a success, but perhaps their own fans will give the German team the wings which they need to fly right to the top to write another Wintermärchen.
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