No way through: The HSG Hanau around Yaron Pillmann (on the ball) had to admit defeat to VfL Potsdam around Karl Roosna.
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In the quarter-final first leg for promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga between HSG Hanau and VfL Potsdam, many viewers in front of the screens should have remembered the fable with the rabbit and hedgehog, because wherever the Hanau handball players wanted to go on Saturday evening, their opponents were already there.
Hanau – Unlike in the fable, the team from Brandenburg scored with fast legs and successfully pulled the teeth of the HSG, which is now going into the second leg on Sunday with a heavy mortgage of the 27:35 (12:19) defeat.
During the week, HSG coach Hannes Geist had warned of the opponent’s “offensively interpreted” 6-0 defense, and the guests proved from the first minute that this warning was more than justified. Whenever the home side wanted to initiate the decisive action with their triggering actions, sudden opponents stood on their feet, permanently disrupted the flow of the game of the hosts and provoked errors on the assembly line with their impressive agility at the HSG.
“Adler” from Potsdam is extremely agile in attack
It didn’t look much better for Hanau when the “Eagles” were on the attack: Here the guests brought their players into good throwing positions time and again thanks to their speed and agility; especially left-hander Karl Roosna hit the HSG badly and chased one litter after the other past the luckless Hanau goalkeeper Sebastian Schermuly.
The fact that Hanau stayed at least a quarter of an hour away was also due to Jannik Ruppert, who scored all four of his goals in this phase and VfL goalkeeper Jan Jochens fired two violent throws through his suspenders. But then the HSG had to concede seven goals in a row within just five minutes without scoring a single time. Geist took a break, but his team was completely out of the role for a few minutes and only recovered shortly before the break.
With seven goals behind, Hanau went into the second round, in which the Potsdamers defended even more offensively – a tactic against which Geist’s team rarely found good solutions. Instead, the hosts fought a verbal war with the sometimes unhappy team of referees, which culminated in a time penalty against the coach himself. After the final whistle, he was self-critical: “We”, said the HSG coach, who expressly included himself, “focused too much on the surrounding areas and lost focus on the match plan. That annoys me. “At least in terms of fighting, the home side was not to blame, despite the high defeat they braced themselves against the defeat.
HSG Hanau can only set needle sticks
Much more than pinpricks – especially in the interplay between Yaron Pillmann and Lucas Lorenz, who scored seven times – the hosts could not bet, especially since the HSG was far too seldom able to successfully develop its otherwise extremely dangerous speed game. “We had few ball wins, so we rarely got into the tempo game and,” complained Geist, “then played out these situations badly.”
Thanks to their fighting spirit and passion, the people of Hanau prevented the guests who played as if they were cast from one piece and who fully lived up to their role as favorites, from setting themselves apart even further. “It is what distinguishes Hanau,” said VfL coach Daniel Deutsch appreciatively, “that they fight to the end.”
This fighting spirit should also be important in the second leg on Sunday, because the Grimmstädter go into this after the 27:35 (12:19) defeat at home with a deficit of eight goals. In the face of this, German does not want to feel too safe: “That is a cushion, but that can also be deceptive, which is why we are humbly preparing for the second leg.” A lot can happen in handball, and the HSG, “said the Hanau trainer,” should never be written off. “By Robert Giese)
HSG Hanau: Sebastian Schermuly, Fabian Tomm; Jonas Ahrensmeier (2), Maximilian Bergold (1), Luca Braun (2), Marius Brüggemann (1), Björn Christoffel (2/2), Dennis Gerst (3), Benjamin Horn, Lucas Lorenz (7), Robin Marquardt ( 1), Yaron Pillmann (1), David Rivic (1), Jannik Ruppert (4), Marc Strohl (2) – Referee: Kauth / Kolb – Seven meters: HSG 2/2, VfL 6/6 – Time penalties: HSG 4, VfL 2 – Special incident: Red card for Marquardt (HSG, 60th, gross foul)
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