There are not many teams from the current field of the 2nd Handball Bundesliga that stated their sole goal before the season was to stay in the league. TSV Bayer Dormagen and newly promoted EHV Aue are among them and will meet on Saturday (6 p.m.) at Höhenberg. So it’s an extremely important game for both teams, as they have to score very important points against a direct competitor.
Points, as has been shown on the first four matchdays, can only be scored for both teams against most other teams if they can perform to their maximum potential – and/or have the necessary luck on their side. The EHV has not been able to do this so far. In his previous competitive games, including the first round cup game against Bietigheim (30:33), the second division Dino (29 years old) showed that he is competitive at this level after his return, but that didn’t bring him anything worthwhile. The East Germans came closest last Friday, when they were already winning at home against VfL Lübeck-Schwartau, but then lost 26:27 in a nerve-wracking final phase. Afterwards, everyone involved agreed, including the former Dormagen youth coach David Röhrig as the Lübeck coach, that a draw would have been the fairer result.
In contrast, TSV has already won once in this young season. On the third matchday, the team, which was even further rejuvenated in the summer, proved that they are ready for important games with a deserved 35:29 win against the second promoted team TuS Vinnhorst. “The team has overcome many difficult phases over the past two seasons. She is strong in pressure situations,” explains TSV coach Matthias Flohr. And Flohr also makes it clear that Saturday is definitely such a pressure situation in which a win is almost mandatory. He doesn’t say it clearly, but it gives a deep insight when he says: “This is an important game considering the table situation. If we could set a mark against Aue, that would be great.” Because Flohr is usually not a fan of looking at table situations and results in order to derive conclusions or work assignments for the next tasks. This is also what he says with regard to the match in Coburg, which was lost 22:28 due to a weak second half: “That’s over. Every game has to be seen on its own merits, it can quickly go in the other direction.” The U21 world champion revealed in an interview shortly afterwards that the Dormagen players were well aware of what the situation was like after the missed opportunity in Coburg of the game: “We have to beat Aue to survive in this league.”
Matthias Flohr found out what his team can expect in intensive video studies of previous EHV games. “It can be seen that Aue is at second division level. “The team is more of a collective, it’s difficult to decide on individual players,” says the TSV coach. Especially on the offensive, Flohr attests to the guests’ many variations, which means they have scored 109 goals so far, one more than Potsdam, who are ninth in the table. Even though Flohr identified a “6-0 defense in various configurations” at Aue, that seems to be where the problem lies so far. 127 goals conceded are currently the second worst league score after Vinnhorst (130). “We have already identified a few weaknesses that we will attack,” emphasizes Flohr.
The coach is of course happy that he can do this with his entire squad. Even the long-injured left winger Luis Pauli (19) returns after successfully completing an endurance test in the second team (regional league) last week. Flohr warns against expecting too much from the youngsters after the extremely error-filled second half against Coburg. “There were too many technical errors without causing any distress. The experienced players have a duty.”
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