Alfred Gislason laughed, he joked with his players, he hugged his colleagues.

It is well known that the 63-year-old Icelander can be charming and has retained a childlike facet.

But under the impression of what is happening, he rarely shows his soft side on the sidelines.

In these Katowice days, however, he is so happy with some of what he sees of his team that the relaxed part of his nature takes over overall.

Gislason said after the 33:26 against the Netherlands in the second main round game on Saturday evening: "It's very nice that we reached the quarter-finals before the last main round game.

It's just extremely important for all of us to continue to be here."

Who would have thought that the selection of the German Handball Federation (DHB) would play so convincingly in the round of the last eight of this world championship in Poland and Sweden?

When it comes to the group final against Norway on Monday evening at 8.30 p.m. (in the FAZ live ticker for the handball world championship and on ARD), Gislason's team is only concerned with the better starting position for the first knockout game - whereby "better" means avoiding the strong French on Wednesday in Gdansk and getting the weakened Spaniards.

Important intermediate stage for the DHB team

Yes, and you have to remember that after five games: From a German perspective, the World Cup is already a small success.

Because the Germans shone with enthusiasm and ease and en passant reached an important intermediate stage - belonging to the eight best teams in the world, the DHB will take part in one of the qualifying tournaments for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Gislason always has such consequences in mind.

That's another reason why he was so happy after the win against the Netherlands: a first goal has been ticked off.

A lot came together on Saturday evening in the Spodek Arena.

The Germans did not fall into the speed trap that the Dutch had set up so successfully in the narrow defeat against Norway in the preliminary round.

If the ball was lost, everyone ran back.

And even if the first 20 minutes were balanced and the DHB seven only led 9:8, the attacks seemed structured and played to the end like the whole tournament.

Gislason had Julian Köster start on the half-left backcourt instead of Philipp Weber.

That paid off: it created more pressure, more throwing power against the small Dutch defence.

In addition to the usual moves, Juri Knorr tried a little too much this time, but was not discouraged.

When the score was 15:12 at halftime, the national team had benefited from strong saves by Andreas Wolff in goal, he quickly had 44 percent of balls saved.

Knorr and Köster scored in front.

Unlike in the tests against Iceland before the World Cup, Golla and Co. were wide awake after the break.

Knorr twice, Köster once and Patrick Groetzki twice pushed the interim result up to 20:12.

There was full conviction in every action.

Thanks to the good defensive inner blocks (Golla/Köster) and a Wolff in the finest condition, the show run into the quarter-finals began.

The Dutch, with their many German second division players in the squad, only rarely got through, playmaker Luc Steins did not always use his "Halfs" Kay Smits and Dani Baijens as precisely as he is known to do.

But above all, Bart Ravensbergen from HSG Nordhorn-Lingen clearly lost the goalkeeper duel against Wolff: Wolff had saved 17 of 40 balls in the end.

Now it also paid off that Gislason was already distributing the forces throughout the tournament.

His Dutch counterpart Staffan Olsson has much less choice, and so his team ran out of breath: Juri Knorr's seven-meter goal to make it 24:16 in the 45th minute decided the game.

"It's good that we can spread the load," said Gislason, who rested Kai Häfner and also gave Johannes Golla and Julian Köster a few minutes on the bench.

The rest were a few spectacular saves by Wolff, a reasonably successful German 7:6 game without a goalkeeper (who knows what else that can be good for) and once again a strong attacking effectiveness, which resulted in a nice Kempa goal by Weber after a pass by Christoph Steinert's culminated.

While Gislason was relieved to finally convince in the fourth tournament under his leadership, Juri Knorr was also under pressure: "It's a huge success for us.

It's just incredibly fun and now we're going to continue.

We throw everything in here and want to have fun in the game.” This lightness radiated into the German living room: that's good news a year before the European Championships at home.

The side note of a successful evening was that the DHB team now stays in the tournament even if they lose on Wednesday.

On Friday and Sunday (January 27th/29th) the places five to eight among the four quarter-final losers will be played out in Stockholm.

In any case, the journey continues.