PlayStation?

Not in the luggage, at least as far as the coach knew.

Books, board games, that's more - "they hang out a lot and talk, the camaraderie looks good," national coach Alfred Gislason said before the tournament and seemed surprised himself at how little gaming on the console apparently belongs to his team's leisure activities.

It is not known how the roommates Jannik Kohlbacher and Juri Knorr passed their time on Saturday morning;

it could have been worthwhile and necessary to review the experiences of Friday evening: to find out how it could have happened.

The national handball team followed the almost perfect first half with a rather defective second half, which culminated in a late flirtation with the disaster.

When Qatar caught up with the Germans in the 51st minute and closed the gap to 26:25, not only Juri Knorr felt a certain trepidation: "I don't even want to imagine what would have happened if we hadn't gotten out of this phase would have freed,” said the 22-year-old playmaker.

Exciting game

Philipp Weber, Kohlbacher and Knorr himself with the goals up to 29:25 in the 55th minute let the selection of the German Handball Association (DHB) breathe a sigh of relief up to the roof of the "Spodek" arena.

On Friday the 13th everything had gone well again.

And the German fans among the 2,500 spectators were able to continue the party as planned and later in Katowice's old town to discuss what ended up being a very exciting start game for the DHB at this World Cup in Poland and Sweden.

"Player of the Game"

The audience had previously celebrated Knorr with shouts of "Juri!", but that was in the brilliant first round.

18:13, Knorr as director and scorer - that seemed solid and sovereign.

After scoring eight goals, the Rhein-Neckar Löwen voted the professional "Player of the Game";

a trophy whose value the actors like to downplay with reference to the team effort.

So does Knorr: "That's nice, but I know that I didn't do a few things so well, I handled the ball too loosely with one or two passes." That's right - Knorr reminded me of Lucky Luke, with to which the "Kieler Nachrichten" compared him.

"Cowboy" Knorr drew very quickly.

And the ball flew into Qatar's hands.

The comparison with those test games against Iceland last weekend was obvious, in which he initially received a full load of criticism from the national coach, but was later also praised.

Knorr made "expensive mistakes", Gislason reprimanded after the defeat in the first test.

That set the tone and sharpened the senses, how to look at Knorr: Is his risk in the game necessary for the Germans to get ahead or is it harmful because the stakes and profit are not balanced?

It is clear that you will not get a Juri Knorr without daring actions, nor do you want to get one at all.

All in all, it was he and goalkeeper Andreas Wolff who helped most effectively to win the first tournament.

Wolff's calf injury turned out to be less serious on Friday evening.

After he had talked the horror from his soul, Knorr also saw the positive: "We have a good spirit.

Even in bad phases, when it got tighter and tighter, the next one came in and did his job.

That has to be our strength for the tournament.

If we stand together as a team, we can achieve something.”