That was not a lot: the prestige win against France was followed by an unnecessary defeat in Great Britain for Germany's basketball players. This time the team cannot compensate for the many failures.
Newcastle (dpa) - The German basketball players have their first defeat in the European Championship qualification.
Three days after the strong performance in the win against France, the team of national coach Henrik Rödl lost 73:81 (39:40) in Great Britain and showed a disappointing performance. The best German thrower in Newcastle was Ulm's Andreas Obst with 24 points.
The defeat has no impact. Because Germany competes out of competition in the qualification because the team is already qualified as a partial host of the 2021 European Championship. At the European Championships, a preliminary round will take place in Cologne and the final round in Berlin.
First things get serious for Germany in summer. Then the selection of the German Basketball Federation in Croatia at the qualification tournament (June 23-28) still wants to buy the ticket to the Olympic Games in Tokyo. At the messed up World Cup in China, Germany was the 18th to miss this goal for miles.
Because of the dispute between the associations and the Euroleague, Rödl had to give up the players from the teams in the Euroleague in addition to the NBA professionals around Dennis Schröder in Newcastle. The players from Bayern Munich and Alba Berlin were therefore missing.
And unlike the prestige success against France in Vechta before, the inexperienced German team could not compensate for the losses this time. The German team struggled from the start. Only in the middle of the first quarter did the guests find their rhythm and developed a five-point tour (10:17 pm).
Rödl initially selected the top five in Maik Zirbes, Karim Jallow, Ismet Akpinar, Andreas Obst and Robin Benzing, which had also started and harmonized well against France. In the following years, the national coach changed cheerfully and also helped Jan Niklas Wimberg from second division club Chemnitz and Würzburg's Joshua Obiesie to make their international debuts.
The DBB selection lost its momentum due to the many rotations in the second section and even fell behind due to a 0:10 run. Overall, there was not much going on before the half-time break, so the second-class hosts, who had lost to Montenegro at the start, were 40:39 ahead after 20 minutes.
After the change of sides, the German team started again. Fruit, in particular, now turned up and brought the German team back into the lead with successful throws from a distance. The DBB selection went into the final section with a five-point lead. Germany then ran out of steam there. The British took advantage of the many mistakes made by the German team and won a very important victory for them.
Boxscore
Information about the German squad on the DBB homepage
Information about the EM 2021 on the DBB homepage
Information about the EM qualification on the FIBA homepage
DBB announcement on the squad against Great Britain
