Handball | Füchse Berlin: Three games to the »lifelong dream« championship

"Right, let's go!" Bob Hanning seems to want to get the question round over with quickly. But even the 57-year-old can't help himself on an evening like this, going into a long, drawn-out conversation and ultimately talking about his "lifelong dream" after 20 years with Füchse Berlin. Because the handball players from the capital city had previously beaten MT Melsungen 37:29, they now, as sole leaders of the Bundesliga with three games remaining, have a great chance of winning the first championship title in the club's history. That's precisely why Hanning joined the then second-division team as manager.

Tense Berliners

It wasn't just any victory that 9,000 spectators enthusiastically celebrated on Thursday evening in the sold-out Max Schmeling Hall. In recent weeks, everything in the Bundesliga had been heading toward this duel: first against second, level on points, the best offense against the strongest defense. "Everyone was tense, everyone knew: This is the big game," sporting director Stefan Kretzschmar later said, describing the atmosphere at Füchse Berlin and around the club in the days leading up to it.

This tension was also palpable in the arena: After a quarter of an hour, the score was 7-7, a balanced game in which goalkeeper Dejan Milosavljev was the best Berlin player. Five minutes later, the Füchse led 13-7, with Mathias Gidsel scoring three of the six goals. He finished with 15 and said: "I don't know what was wrong with me today." Once again, it was the World Handball Player who made the big difference. The analysis of the sobered Melsungen coach Roberto Garcia Parrondo: "We couldn't defend Gidsel well."

Unlucky guests

The visitors from Hesse, who have won 25 of their 31 league matches, struggled to achieve anything this evening. This is because a team has grown around Gidsel in Berlin that is still in contention for the Champions League title this season. One example is left winger Tim Freihöfer : With 192 goals and a strike rate of almost 77 percent, the 22-year-old is already playing at the top of the Bundesliga.

Only Gidsel can boast better results in Berlin: With his 249 goals, he has scored almost a quarter of all the Füchse's goals in the Bundesliga. This is one of the reasons why Kretzschmar called him "a gift" for the club on Thursday. The 26-year-old has already been named World Handball Player of the Year twice. He won Olympic gold with the Danish national team last year in Paris and won the world championship for the third time in early February. On Thursday, he stood in the Max Schmeling Hall and said that for the first time in his career, he was nervous before a match. The significance of this match for the Berliners could hardly be described better.

Simple calculation

For Jaron Siewert, "pressure" is "a positive expectation." The Füchse coach, at least outwardly, usually gives the Berlin team the most relaxed impression, including on Thursday. His players can't hide their relief and euphoria; they dance in the arena and celebrate with the fans. "Leaders," echoes repeatedly through the arena.

It's hard to resist your own emotions. Especially when, as in Bob Hanning's case, it's a lifelong dream. So he warns about Sunday's away game against relegation-battling Stuttgart, who won 33:26 on Thursday against the Rhein-Neckar Löwen, the Füchse's opponents on the last matchday. Next Thursday, Gummersbach, a team that, according to Hanning, "can beat any opponent in the league," will play in Berlin. The formula for the championship is simple: three games, three wins – then even the now second-placed SC Magdeburg won't be able to do anything. Gidsel knows the solution: "If we give 100 percent, we'll win, regardless of whether the opponent is Melsungen or Barcelona."