At the end of a long season, Filip Jicha once again distributed praise. “I am very proud of my team. She fought like lions,” said the THW Kiel coach. But there was no surprise. The finally deserved 30:34 (18:19) defeat on Saturday in the semi-finals of the Final Four in Cologne shattered the North Germans’ dream of a fifth title in the Handball Champions League. A day later there was a small consolation: With a 37:35 (34:34, 14:18) victory after throwing seven meters against the Hungarian top team Telekom Veszprém, THW at least secured third place.
Filip Jicha accepted the premature end like a great sportsman. “You can’t win every game,” said the Czech, who has celebrated so many triumphs in his fantastic career. But title number 30 as a player and coach will have to wait for the time being. For the Bundesliga runners-up, there will only be one title in the 2021/22 season, winning the German club cup.
The reason for this was obvious. The mortgage with which the German record champions traveled to Cologne ultimately turned out to be too big. The absence of the key players Hendrik Pekeler and Sander Sagosen could not be compensated for in the semifinals. At least not over the entire length of the game, in which the THW had acted on an equal footing with the premier class record winner in a thrilling first half.
Semifinals: Kiel inferior
After the change of sides, however, the absence of defender Pekeler and backcourt star Sagosen became increasingly noticeable. The cover lacked compactness, which was also due to the fact that the inner block had to be changed in the absence of organizer Pekeler. To make matters worse, Niklas Landin, actually a bench between the posts, acted far below normal form in the biggest game of the season and clearly lost the goalkeeper duel against Gonzalo Perez de Vargas with only six saves.
At the front, the allusions to Patrick Wiencek, who was successful six times in the first round, no longer came through. There was a lack of structure, the slight mistakes increased. Trumps like the unusually weak right winger Niclas Ekberg did not sting. “If you want to win against Barca, you have to show a perfect performance. We didn’t manage that,” summed up Filip Jicha, whose team fell behind by three goals at the beginning of the second half – and couldn’t find a way back.
Kiel has already won the Champions League four times
“I don’t want to look for excuses, but of course we missed them,” Domagoj Duvnjak missed the badly injured top performers Pekeler and Sagosen, who will be missing for many months from THW. The captain said what the majority of the 19,250 spectators in the Lanxess Arena cauldron felt at the moment of Kiel’s failure: “We are sad.” The fifth triumph in the Champions League after 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2020 is therefore a goal for the future, in which the North Germans will have to cope with a generation change. Sander Sagosen and Niklas Landin will leave the club in summer 2023.
At least the final tournament had a happy ending for the THW, who followed the words of their trainer after the semifinals (“We will get up again and do our best”) with deeds. Against Veszprém, the zebras fought their way into the penalty shoot-out after being 23:27 behind (43 rd ) with great morale, where the recovered Niklas Landin could not be defeated three times. And when Filip Jicha received the bronze medal, the smile was back on the lips of the Kiel coach, who seemed inconsolable less than 24 hours before. “We can be satisfied,” said Domagoj Duvnjak.
–
