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

• France - 8 pts - 141:84 - +57
  
• Croatia - 8 pts - 140:89 - +51
  
• Sweden - 8 pts - 136:88 - +48
  
• Hungary - 7 pts - 126:88 - +38
• Slovakia - 5 pts - 124:96 - +28
• Spain - 4 pts - 144:103 - +41

Group II

• Denmark - 8 pts - 135:93 - +42
• Germany - 7 pts - 117:93 - +24
• Norway - 6 pts - 134:91 - +43
• Poland - 6 pts - 123:101 - +22
• Russia - 5 pts - 113:109 - +4
• Serbia - 4 pts - 123:117 - +6

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

• France - 6 pts - 108:58 - +48
  
• Croatia - 6 pts - 108:67 - +41
  
• Sweden - 6 pts - 106:69 - +37
  
• Slovakia - 5 pts - 98:61 - +37
• Hungary - 5 pts - 95:68 - +27
• Spain - 4 pts - 122:71 - +51

Group II

• Norway - 6 pts - 108:64 - +44
• Germany - 5 pts - 84:70 - +14
• Poland - 4 pts - 92:74 - +18
• Denmark - 4 pts - 77:63 - +14
• Macedonia - 4 pts - 86:73 - +13
• Serbia - 2 pts - 96:91 - +5

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… Well, I don’t want to nitpick, I have also monitored a client’s website over the weekend to see what impact such an event has (learning from experiences during the World Championship 2007), but so far, everything is running fine (knock on wood!).

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)

• Slovakia
• Spain
• Hungary
• Sweden
• France
• Croatia

Group II (1st to 3rd of Group C + D)

• Poland
• Norway
• Germany
• Denmark
• Macedonia
• Serbia

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:

• www.dhb.de
• www.handball-magazin.com
• www.croatia2009.com

So, let’s now hope corruption and doping don’t show their ugly face during the WC.

The Norwegian ladies won over the Spanish team with a stunning 34:21 and are the gold champions of the EURO 2008. Yeah!

Germany sadly lost its (re)match versus Russia for the bronze medal with 21:24. Well, I had expected a bit more, but nevertheless the German handball women now are one of the best teams in Europe.

Norway beat Russia with 24:18 and is now facing Spain in the finals tomorrow. Russia has again to face Germany, now it will be the decision who wins the bronze medal. Hopefully Germany.

All the best to Norge!

Gratulations to the Spanish women! They defeated the German women handball team with 33:29 in a hot and fiercely fought match. Too many errors on the German side resulted in Germany only playing in the “small” finale (places 3 and 4).

So Spain is now in the finals. Today afternoon it will be decided if Norway or Russia will face the Spanish team now.

Norway won against Romania yesterday evening: 37:31. So now Norway meets Russia and Germany meets Spain in the semi finals. My bet of Norway versus Germany in the finals is still valid.

Which also brings me into a bit of a dilemma, which team should I support? The country where I hail from or the country where I might want to live in?

The German handball women just won their match against world champion Russia with 27:22.

It has been a nice match to watch.

So, we now have to wait how Olympic gold team Norway fares against Romania. One of them will be Germany’s opponent in the semifinals.

Wikipedia got a nice overview of the tournament:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_European_Women%27s_Handball_Championship

28:28… well, with a lot of luck the German women were able to get to a draw in their match against Belarus yesterday. Now the German team got the same points as Russia, both have 7 points but Russia got the better goal ratio. A victory today against Russia is now more than useful.

In Group I, the women’s team of Norway is at the top with 7 points, followed by Romania with 6 points.

Norge, Norge!