DHB U21 delights national coach: German defending champions rush into the World Cup main round with a lot of goals

After the thrilling victory at the World Cup opener, the German U21 national handball team is going strong in their second match. They're coming off a convincing victory against Switzerland, securing their place in the main round. The national coach is impressed.

Germany's junior handball players have secured early qualification for the main round of the U21 World Championship in Poland. Coach Martin Heuberger's team defeated Switzerland decisively 43:33 (21:14) in Kielce and can already plan for the next stage of the tournament after Wednesday's hard-fought 30:29 win against Serbia.

Against an overmatched Swiss team, who had won their opening match against Tunisia 41:31, the game was decided surprisingly early. Even the men's national coach was surprised by the ruthlessness of the German youth team – and impressed: "The boys played an outstanding game. I actually expected a very close game that would only be decided in the final stages, but our team got off to a great start, and after just 20 minutes, it looked like a sure victory," said Alfred Gislason. "That was a very good team performance in attack and defense."

Gislason has now made no fewer than eight 2023 World Cup winners into senior national team players, with Nils Lichtlein, goalkeeper David Späth, Renars Uscins and Justus Fischer a quartet that has long been a permanent fixture in the men's national team.

On Saturday, the title defense project concludes in Group G against bottom-placed Tunisia, who are pointless at the moment (9 p.m./Dyn). Eight players from the 2023 winning team are back in the game. The top German scorers were Henri Pabst of record champions THW Kiel and Tim Gömmel of HC Erlangen, each scoring eight goals. The U19 World Cup-winning generation of Spain and African champions Egypt await the DHB juniors in the main round.