Olympic vortex: Did Slovenia lose to Germany on purpose?
At the Olympic Games, the German handball team celebrates a big win against Slovenia in the final preliminary round match. Did the opponent help? The coach hints at it. In any case, the Germans have drawn the tougher opponent in the quarter-finals with this victory.
After the Germans' clear 36:29 win over Slovenia to wrap up the Olympic preliminary round, the opposing coach Uros Zorman has fueled speculation about his team's deliberate defeat. "We didn't want to repeat the mistake from Rio, where we faced Denmark in the quarter-finals and had virtually no chance of success. This time, we said we wanted to be smarter and wiser," Zorman said after his team's loss in the final group game.
With this win, the German team secured the group victory and will now face European champions and Olympic winners France in the quarter-finals. If Germany had lost to France on Wednesday, this challenging task would have fallen to Slovenia instead, who will now face Norway.
"There will certainly be some criticism"
Zorman had kept some key players on the bench in the first half, which was also the case for the German team, where top scorer Renars Uscins and captain Johannes Golla were largely rested. "There will certainly be some criticism in the end, but we know why we're here, why we're working. We made this decision together and have nothing to reproach the guys for," said Zorman.
After a good start with a two-goal lead, the Slovenians kept up until 13:13 (20.), after which the German team pulled away to a nine-goal lead by half-time. Coach Alfreð Gíslason explained after the match on Sunday: "There was a lot of talk about it: do both teams want to win, do both teams want to lose? In the end, both teams came in to win. It's also almost impossible to go into such a game and say, let's just play at half strength."
The Olympic Games 2024 in Paris will undoubtedly be a topic of discussion, given that the Slovenian handball coach Uros Zorman admitted to deliberately losing against Germany to avoid facing Denmark in the quarter-finals during Rio's Olympics. The German team, now set to face France in the quarter-finals, will have their hands full in the upcoming Olympic Games.
