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Cairo (AP) - Questions to handball national coach Alfred Gislason after the 31:24 (16:12) victory in the second main round game of the World Cup in Egypt against Brazil.
Question: The quarter-finals were no longer possible before that.
What does this victory against Brazil do in you?
Alfred Gislason: I'm happy that the team went in full throttle.
Right from the start, we did better defensive work and, as a result, did good goalkeeping performances.
And I also think we attacked very, very well throughout the game.
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Question: What significance do games like against Brazil and on Monday at the end of the World Cup against Poland have in view of the future?
These two games are very important.
I have extremely little time to train the team.
Every game is extremely important because we want to develop and improve tactically.
You can see that from game to game that we are becoming significantly more variable.
The game becomes smoother.
Huge compliments to the team on how quickly they managed to implement that.
The next game against Poland will continue and we will certainly want to try one or the other.
In about 6 weeks we will have the Olympic qualification in Berlin.
So of course I hope that everyone who canceled here will be available to me.
Then we have a great opportunity to improve our weak point in this tournament, i.e. the defense, by a few classes.
Question: Are there any players in the World Cup who, in your opinion, have developed well in this tournament?
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Sure, there are several players.
But if, for example, Patrick Wiencek, Jannik Kohlbacher and Hendrik Pekeler had been here, then I would say that Johannes Golla would not have played that much.
He's played a great tournament so far the boy.
Then there are a number of other players who could show themselves.
That will also help us for March, then we will be well rehearsed.
Even if we had hoped to get to the quarter-finals, this tournament will pay off for us.
Question: You have never complained about the corona-related World Cup cancellations by regular players such as Pekeler or Wiencek.
Are you still looking at them with a crying eye, because they could have been more?
I didn't start crying.
But I think we would have had a very good chance of progressing.
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Question: Were you still surprised by this mixed-up World Cup team that played strong at times?
I'm very proud of this team, even though we lost points to Hungary and gave away the game against Spain.
It was much more possible for this team with these problems that we have.
That just shows the character.
Question: Why was your number one Andreas Wolff not in the squad for the Brazil game after poor tournament performance?
I don't blame Andi for anything.
Andi started against Hungary and Spain.
And in both games there were two-minute penalties in the first quarter of an hour.
So mostly there were only five defenders in front of him.
I already decided after the Spain game and told Andi that he should concentrate on Poland, he knows them inside out.
There's no story behind it.
I just have the advantage that I have three very good, experienced goalkeepers.
Question: With a view to the Olympic qualification in March, how important is it to come out of this tournament with a win?
In all honesty, that would be very important to me.
Then we'd go out with four good games.
There are only about six weeks left until this qualifying tournament, then two very strong teams, Slovenia and Sweden, and Algeria, a very young team that can also play handball very well.
That is why every experience that we gain here is very important.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210124-99-146566 / 2
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Squad of German handball players
Schedule of the German handball players
Presidium of the German Handball Federation
Board of the German Handball Federation
Schedule and groups Handball World Cup