Easter and the relaxation phase associated with it were yesterday. On Tuesday, Matthias Flohr welcomed the second division handball players he coached at TSV Bayer Dormagen with the words: “Men, it goes on! We’re still in the relegation battle!”
But the short break before the definitely tough duel on Friday evening (7:30 p.m.) in the Krollmann Arena on Ischeland with VfL Eintracht Hagen did us good. “It was necessary at times,” says the coach, “we had a lot of pressure on the boiler.” Although Flohr still advocates not basing performance solely on the result, after the defeat against Potsdam (33: 38), Balingen-Weilstetten (24:29), Eisenach (22:27) and Bietigheim (32:34) even the former national player gradually ran out of arguments. “That’s the way business is,” he admits. The strong proof of work and appearances crowned with victories in Coburg (27:20) and especially against TuS N-Lübbecke (30:25) were all the more liberating.
However, Flohr does not accept the thesis that his boys would simply work harder when compared to the top teams in the league. “Because all opponents are strong, no matter where they are in the table.” He also expressly includes Hagen, “a team that originally started the season with completely different goals and their quality keeps flashing.”
He thinks his colleague Stefan Neff has a “rather well-positioned squad” – and can prove it with names: He knows the Iranian international and top scorer Pouya Norouzi in the backcourt from the German upper house. The same applies to half-right Philipp Vorlicek. The circular players Alexander Becker and Frederic Stüber would also bring a lot of experience with them as important pillars in the middle block. Although there was an unfortunate 25:26 defeat at HC Elbflorenz on Maundy Thursday after previous victories over Großwallstadt (31:25) and Ludwigshafen (34:33), the guests had to do so alongside Gaubatz, Stefan, Klein, Toromanovic, Renninger and Mestrum also without Valentin Spohn due to illness.
For this reason, Pouya Norouzi moved from the playmaker position to the left backcourt, Valentin Schmidt started in the middle and defensively switched to defender Alexander Becker. Although Norouzi later had to leave with an elbow injury – Arvid Dragunski took over for him – Eintracht were up three times with three goals and could still dream of an away win with 27 seconds remaining.
But outnumbered, the guests only put the ball on the post through Valentin Schmidt and in return Lukas Wucherpfennig marked the 26:25 for Dresden. From this Flohr concludes: “Hagen is fighting for every centimeter.” He therefore considers a repetition of the comparatively easy 30:24 victory in the first leg to be out of the question. His boys had already been up 16:9 at half-time.
In order to optimally prepare his team for the game against their neighbors in the table, Flohr sat down on his laptop on Wednesday immediately after the athletic training session in the morning and the usual meeting with the sports director to elicit the final secrets from Eintracht. He then presented the results of his work to his protégés in the evening. everyday life as a trainer.
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