The European Champions are winning every next match at the tournament in Kielce. In their third match they calmly won against Slovakia and secured a place in the next stage of the championship.

GERMANY – SLOVAKIA 27:19 (12:7)

The Germans from the very beginning took a little lead over the Slovaks. After ten minutes the score was 6:3 in their favour and after next ten minutes 8:5. Both teams were scoring next goals quite arduously, playing long in attack, before they managed to work out a good position to throw the ball between the posts. From time to time the fans could watch some counterattacks, but rather as the second wave than the first one. After thirty minutes the Germans were leading 12:7.

The second half took a well known course for the Germans, who stabilized the game and were defending the advantage from the first half. Slovak team were doing their best to catch up with the loss, but their actions usually were getting stuck somewhere in the middle of their rivals’ defence and used by the Germans in counterattacks. In the end Germany won 27:19 and secured a place in the next stage of tournament.

photo credit: PRESSFOCUS/ZPRP

Zuzana Porvaznikova, assistant coach of Germany: We are very happy that we qualified to the next stage, but we are not going to focus on this fact. Now we have a day of break and on Saturday we will focus on our next opponent, the hosts, Poland.

Rasmus Poulsen, coach of Slovakia: For us it isn’t a big disappointment. It was satisfying match for us. Of course, we would like to lose one or two goals less, but we saved some players for the next games, so I can not complain about this match. It could have been much worse. Yes, our main goal is now to get promoted from the group. We would like to be among top 16 teams. It was a free game for us, not “must win”.

GERMANY: Zenner, Waldenmaier – Uhlmann, Hausherr 2, Kockel 2, Weise 2, Andreas 4, Muehlner, Quist 4, Von Pereira 3, Agwunedu 2, Wulf, Neubrander 2, Golla 1, Michalczik 1, Bleckmann 4

SLOVAKIA: Opatova, Chudovska, Olahova – Trepacova 4, Marcincakova, Beluskova 1, Pastorekova 1, Meszaros 7, Ratvajska, Chovanova 1, Holincova 3, Kakascikova 2, Kosova, Michalkova, Galkova, Manczal

GALERIA