Archive for the “Thoughts” CategoryDear RTL! If you cannot get a sports internet livestream to work, what about hiring some real pros for the job? Shouldn’t be a problem with the money you earn and have, but I guess you are more likely to invest it in trash movies and series and such abominable TV-atrocities like “Das Dschungelcamp - Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus”. Tags: RTL
Yesterday, the German team had troubles with Serbia. The match resulted in a draw, 35:35. During the first half, German playing was crap and Serbia came out of the top with 19:16 after the first half. But the German team got a lot, really a lot better in the second half. Serbia has a strong and good handball team, even if they seem to use a lot of semi-hidden, unfair moves against their opponents. With luck, Germany closed the match at least with a draw and I guess, if we had ten more seconds in the second half, Germany would have scored another goal and won. Norway won against Macedonia 29:27 in an exciting match. Best players were IMO Kristian Kjelling and Håvard Tvedten. BTW, DSF moderators should learn how to pronounce Norwegian names right. The rest of the Handball day: Denmark sadly lost against Poland (28:32); France won over Sweden (28:21), Slovakia won versus South Korea (23:20) and Croatia won against Hungary (27:22). Group I
Group II
So, the prelimaries are over. Which team plays in the main round now? The first three of Groups A, B, C and D get into the Groups I and II. They take their points and goals from matches against the other qualifying teams from the same group with them (one win = 2 pts, draw = 1 pt etc.). An example: Group D Denmark (1st), Serbia (2nd) and Norway (3rd) made it to the main round (after normal point/goal count). Denmark won against Serbia with 37:36 and against Norway with 32:28. So the two wins are giving 4:0 points and Denmark has a goal total of 69:64. Serbia has lost one match (vs. Denmark) and won the match against Norway with 27:26. So they end up with 2:2 points and a goal total of 63:63. Norway lost the matches against Denmark and Serbia, so they start with 0:4 points and a goal total of 54:59. The finished main round groups: Group I
Group II
Germany won 30:23 with an impressive performance over Poland. A nice match to view, many individual moves of the German players. Even with only four players (+ goalkeeper) versus Poland’s six plus one, Germany played itself into a frenzy. I hope they can keep up this spirit for the main round. Best player on German side was the goal keeper, Carsten Lichtlein. Awesome how he kept his goal clear! BTW, Spain lost their match to South Korea, so now South Korea takes Spain’s place in the main round. And with love from Macedonia, Russia was send to the President’s Cup instead. So Macedonia is still among the teams playing for the championship. Tags: handball, world championship
Due to its victory over Macedonia yesterday (33:23), Germany finally qualified for the main round. The match has been tight in the first half, resulting in Macedonia leading with 14:13. But after Macedonia lost their captain, Kiril Lazarov, due to a red card because he punched a German player. Macedonia obviously lost their best player and couldn’t keep up with the German team which played the 2nd half a lot more organised and efficient. And the decision of Heiner Brand, to nominate Christian Schöne and get him to Croatia, was a right one. Schöne was IMO the best player on the field and scored eight goals. So, let’s have a look at the groups of the main round now: Group I
Group II
Yesterday, the German Handball team won against Algeria with 32:20, Norway vs. Egypt 30:20 and Denmark vs. Saudi Arabia 32:13. Similar results. I had hoped the German team won with a higher goal result, but it seemed to me, the second line of players still has to become better. Best player on the field has been Torsten Jansen, at least in my eyes basing on a minimal knowledge of Handball. So the groups of the main round still got the same team compositions (teams in orange already are qualified for the main round): Group I
Group II
So, the World Championship 2009 has started… first, a big disappointment: the livestream of RTL does not work. My guess is RTL miscalculated the webtraffic such a livestream creates and so the livestreaming server is heavily overloaded. Obviously it cannot cope with the onslaught of wild webbased German handball team supporters… Secondly, the matches of the German team have been interesting and exciting. It’s not the same team which was winning the WC in 2007, but nevertheless it was nice to see. I agree, the match against Russia could have been better and it ended in a remis 26:26, but you certainly saw an increase in performance against a strong Tunesian team yesterday. Germany won 26:24. How did the other teams? Norway, Denmark (well, a bit too close vs. Serbia), Sweden and Spain got a furious start so far. It’s still too early to predict the Group I and II, but if the current ranking from the preliminary round will not change, we end up with the following: Group I (1st to 3rd of Group A + B)
Group II (1st to 3rd of Group C + D)
Well, Egypt is also in Group D… and with the current head of the IHF being from Egypt, it wouldn’t surprise me if Egypt will get into Group II (or even get into the semifinals…).
Today the 2009 World Men’s Handball Championship starts. It is hosted by Croatia and will end on the 1st February 2009. So we will get a bit more coverage of handball on the TV as well as on news websites. My favourite teams are France (current Olympic Champion), Germany (current World Champion), Denmark (current European Champion) and of course Norway. Sadly, I am missing the team of Iceland, which didn’t qualify during the European play-offs. Well, there will be certainly highly exciting matches and I am certainly looking forward to watch some on TV. Sadly, the German TV broadcaster for all matches with the German team is RTL, which is not available via Zatoo, so I either have to move the TV to my computer room or try and use their web livestream. Some other matches are shown by DSF, which is available via Zatoo on my laptop. I hope at least a client’s server will stay up during the WC and will not face the same fate as in 2007, when the server crashed due to heavy load and emergency works had to be done throughout the nights. More webcoverage of the World Championship: So, let’s now hope corruption and doping don’t show their ugly face during the WC. Tags: Croatia, dhb, handball, ihf, world championship
Today is a sad day – it’s the 90th anniversary of the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The were assassinated by rightist Freikorps-members during the first months of the Weimar Republic. They were the first victims of National Socialism – where their murderers later on found a new home and we all know what evil that created. Tags: marxism, revolution
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Powered by WordPress, Mandigo theme by tom, vegvísir artwork by Brent Berry
» wpSEO optimises your blog - and mine too! «
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).
France - 6:0 pts - 90:69 - +21
Croatia - 6:0 pts - 84:74 - +10
Slovakia - 3:3 pts - 73:79 - -6
Sweden - 2:4 pts - 78:83 - -5
Hungary - 1:5 pts - 68:78 - -10
South Korea - 0:6 pts - 71:81 - -10
Germany - 5:1 pts - 98:81 - +17
Denmark - 4:2 pts - 97:96 - +1
Serbia - 3:3 pts - 98:98 - 0
Norway - 2:4 pts - 83:86 - -3
Poland - 2:4 pts - 84:88 - -4
Macedonia - 2:4 pts - 80:91 - -11
Spain - 4 pts - 144:103 - +41
Russia - 5 pts - 113:109 - +4
