It looked as if the apprentice was talking to the master when Jaron Siewert listened carefully to what Filip Jicha had to say to him on Sunday afternoon an hour before the throw-off.

You can sometimes listen when a multi-crowned colleague is speaking.

Jicha has won all possible titles with THW Kiel - Siewert is clearly behind.

Which in turn is no wonder when you are 28 years old.

But he had the better answer at the end of the top game in the Handball Bundesliga: His foxes took Kiel apart in a rushing 34:26 in the style of a champion and gave the North Germans their first league defeat.

The first exclamation point is now behind the title ambitions of the Berliners.

"We had a week off and were able to manage our load better," said Siewert soberly, "the season is still long, I don't want to know anything about a hint.

That's how you only win one out of 1000 games against THW.” Jicha spoke of a lesson for his young and reformed team.

Siewert does not suffer from any sequelae

It is good news that Siewert is back on the sidelines and doing his job, because the young Berlin coach shocked the entire league with the news of his stroke on August 11th.

As he reports, it started at the training camp with headaches, dizziness and deafness.

Later in the day, vision and speech disorders and paralysis were added.

Siewert was taken to the hospital immediately and underwent surgery.

"It's a bitter fear until the operation," he told the "RBB", "you feel trapped in your own body and just hope that you'll feel better afterwards."

Luckily, that's how it was, thanks to the treating doctors.

The fox grandees Bob Hanning and Stefan Kretzschmar let their relationships play and guaranteed the best care.

"Top people from Germany operated on me," says Siewert, who was back on the bench just four weeks after the operation.

The 31:21 against TVB Stuttgart on September 10 was not only a convincing victory, but also the gratifying return of the youngest Bundesliga coach to the bench.

The reason for the insufficient supply of oxygen to his brain is said to have been found and corrected.

Siewert does not suffer from any sequelae: "It's no longer an issue for me and neither in the team," says Siewert, and his superior, Managing Director Hanning, said: "It's perfectly clear that we gave Jaron all the time he could needs and maybe will need in the future." If you ask your protégés, the frightening moment is still very present: "Many of us have known Jaron for a long time," says Captain Paul Drux, "at first we were all absolutely shocked.

All the better that everything is fine again now.”

From the point of view of the Berlin fans in the Schmeling Hall, which was packed with 9,000 people, there was already a lot of “good” at halftime.

The foxes were leading 16:10 after a 30-minute gala.

Above all, the new star in the team, Mathias Gidsel (six goals), and Mijajlo Marsenic (nine goals) at the circle, the Kielers seemed effortlessly apart.

After the break, the Berliners increased their lead to eight goals;

Kiel bit his teeth against the aggressive defense and conceded a number of hits into empty goals - the 7:6 that coach Jicha allowed to play backfired.

Just four days after the Champions League defeat in Kielce, the visibly tired record champions conceded the first negative points.

On this Sunday there was little to be done against the sheer force of the foxes;

no matter what Jicha tried, Siewert's team had the better answer and in Gidsel and Marsenic the outstanding players of the loud and atmospheric afternoon - and when something came through, Dejan Milosavljev saved decisive throws.

With his snake-like movements, Gidsel caused plenty of movement in the Kiel defence;

THW defensive actions against him often ended in a two-minute time penalty (eight in total).

Stressed early on and weakened by a mistake in substitution, the Kielers were constantly chasing a deficit, which was already quite large at 4:9 in the 15th minute.

Even the change in goal from Niklas Landin to Tomas Mrkva didn't help anymore.

Much to the delight of Füchse captain Paul Drux: “We lost so often in Kiel against such a crowd.

It's just brilliant how it went for us today," he said.

The Championship?

"That's what we're aiming for this year," Drux replied, "we have the squad for it." Then he raved about Mathias Gidsel's qualities for a while.