Germany at the European Handball Championship 2022: Johannes Golla, the model athlete

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Strong defensive player, also strong on offense: Johannes Golla

Photo:

Gerhard Koffler / imago images/Kessler sports photography

Sometimes he doesn't even know whether this is a training session or already an EM duel.

The intensity of the preparation was "incredibly high" among the German national handball team, says Johannes Golla on the phone.

As captain, the pivot from Flensburg leads the team with its nine tournament debutants at the European Championship.

In the evening (6 p.m., TV: ZDF) the second opponent in the preliminary round – Austria – is waiting.

It's an ambitious bunch looking to cause an upset at the finals in Slovakia and Hungary.

A bunch of talent, late starters and players who had already been written off, among other things.

Sometimes some of them meet at the dartboard, also to get to know each other in the new round.

Otherwise, however, a lot is isolated because of Corona – and even more training.

"Everyone wants to prove themselves here and show that they are rightly in the squad," says Golla.

He sounds like it wasn't always like that in the past.

Golla, 24, is currently the most promising German handball player, hardworking, young and capable of development.

Like hardly anyone else, he stands for a spirit of optimism, and German handball can use it well: The year 2021 was a historic low with the desolate performance at the World Cup and Olympics.

On Friday, in the opening match of the European Championship against Belarus, the new German engine jerked violently.

The weak defense had to be saved from the attack.

There is still a lot of work ahead of the DHB selection, but the 33:29 victory was a good start to continue the reconstruction in a more relaxed manner.

For Golla it was the 32nd appearance in the jersey of the national team, the first as captain in the tournament.

He is now one of the spokesmen in German handball.

His goal: It should "make you want" to come to the national team again, which has recently been increasingly seen as a burden in the packed calendar with up to 60 competitive games for the top professionals. German handball must be fun again, says Golla, both for the players themselves and for the many new viewers who tune in every year in January when the handball players go on the record. "If we can do that at the EM, we've achieved a lot."

They value Golla's attitude and dedication to handball in Flensburg and at the DHB.

He is now the figurehead, gives interviews almost every day, recently he was a guest in the ZDF sports studio.

In conversation, Golla is a quiet guy, he doesn't make any statements that polarize.

He's probably not the type of player who misses the former icon Stefan Kretzschmar so much, the wild characters of yesteryear, the »real guys«.

But does he have to?

"What's a real guy supposed to be?" Golla asks.

“Is that one who yells all over the field and then gives special interviews?

I'm not like that." He wants to be a guy who has a good attitude and fulfills tactical guidelines.

»I want to fulfill my role as captain in such a way that everyone in the squad has a good feeling and can do their job.«

He is the boss for the good feeling, and he goes ahead with a lot of commitment.

On the record, Golla is called the "battle sow", Erik Wudtke, Gislason's assistant trainer, gave him the nickname.

At 1.95 meters and 110 kilograms, Golla is one of those closets for which handball enjoys cult status.

He is an edge like the former circle runner legend Christian Schwarzer, who won the world title in 2007 under Heiner Brand.

With his enormous wingspan, Golla leaves the opponent only a few gaps in attacking play - hardly any other DHB professional blocks as many balls as he does.

Gislason's model student

But Golla is not only big and strong, but also more athletic.

Golla sprints from circle to circle on the plate.

At the back he does the hard work of defence, in attack he always puts himself in good positions with his positional play - and scores an amazing number of goals.

In the current Bundesliga season, he is the fourth-best goalscorer in the pivot position.

And he doesn't shy away from challenges.

At the age of 21, Golla moved to Flensburg, he exchanged the tranquil town of Melsungen for a world handball club.

Few German talent dare to take such a step.

In Flensburg or Kiel you have to compete with a number of top international players, with superstars from Scandinavian countries who set the tone in handball.

You can sink here – or grow like Golla.

"He's very focused, modest, a very well-bred boy," says Gíslason in SPIEGEL about Golla.

He built him up to be the captain.

Golla is a guy who “always thinks of the team first”.

For many a German player, the tight schedule with alternating annual European Championships and World Cups has become too much.

Hendrik Pekeler from THW Kiel will be absent from the European Championship;

he would have been set as a regular.

But the 122-time national player would like to give his body a break, he has been struggling with Achilles tendon problems for years.

Also Fabian Wiede, a hope for the meanwhile almost historically weak German backcourt, renounces the EM.

The veterans Steffen Weinhold, 35, and Uwe Gensheimer, 35, have ended their careers in the DHB selection.

And top talent Juri Knorr does not want to be vaccinated for the time being and is therefore not eligible to play at the 2G event in Hungary and Slovakia.

Yes, it seems like all the cancellations don't matter at all.

Golla speaks of a fantastic atmosphere, others confirm that. "It feels different than in previous years," says backcourt player Julius Kühn, who has already taken part in several tournaments: "There's something special in the air with us." of a positive corona test against Austria are missing.

However, Kai Häfner, the match winner in the opening game against Belarus, also admitted: "I didn't know where we were before the European Championship.

And now I still don't know.« Golla and his teammates will still have to work on their new role in world handball.