There came a time for the first loss for Germany. The European Champions didn’t manage to win against Romania and finally took the second place in the group A. In the 1/8 final they will face Croatia, while Romania will play against Sweden.

GERMANY – ROMANIA 17:20 (8:11)

In the last game of the group phase in the Hall Legionów, two best teams of group A played against each other. The Germans haven’t lost any game so far and the Romanian side, apart from the run of three victories, had also a draw with Angola on their account. Thus the game was expected to be equal and so it was indeed. Both teams started equally, but after arounf fifteen minutes the Romanian side took a three-goals lead and defended it till the end oft he first part. The Germans had a problem with forcing a tough Romanian defence and when they finally managed to do this, they were throwing the ball right into Dina Ciuca. After thirty minutes Romania led with 11:8.

The Germans were doing their best in the second half to catch up, but Romanian side were better in each aspect. The game itself was rather defensive with a quite low score. Five minutes before the end of the match it was 18:15 for Romania and after final whistle Romania won 20:17.

photo credit: PRESSFOCUS/ZPRP

GERMANY: Zenner, Waldenmaier – Uhlmann, Hausherr 1, Kockel 1, Weise 2, Andreas, Muehlner 5, Quist 4, Von Pereira 2, Agwunedu, Wulf, Neubrander, Golla 2, Michalczik, Bleckmann

ROMANIA: Ciuca, Chetraru – Balaceanu 5, Cace, Coman, Popa 5, Barabas, Valcan, Marin 3, Tarsoaga 6, Jipa, Moraru, Stamin, Ilie, Pica, Lascateu 1

Zuzana Porvaznikova, assistant coach of Germany: We played good in defence but we couldn’t find our way in attack. Romanian goalkeeper was very good in the goal and Romania, in general, was our strongest opponent so far. Now we want to focus on Croatia and prepare ourselves as good as we can. We need to have fun and enjoythegame.

GALLERY