The Future Is Now

Stregspiller Sascha Staat Unplugged, News Leave a Comment

In sports every now and then an era ends.  The same goes for handball, when a legend like Ivano Balic called it a career, last summer.  Dito Iker Romero.  Kim Ekdahl du Rietz, Holger Glandorf and Thomas Mogensen, decided to retire from their respective national teams.  So who will fill the void in the years to come?  Let’s take a …

“I hope rules won’t be changed forever.”

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By Sascha Staat INTERVIEW – German international Christian Dissinger is still just 24 years old, but already has a ton of experience.  He won the world junior championship in 2011 earning MVP honors, moved to Switzerland when he was 19 years old and signed with cash-strapped Atletico Madrid.  Yet, he never played for the club as management announced bankruptcy right …

Stats don’t lie!

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By Sascha Staat Hey Aron Palmarsson, I hope you’re reading.  I remember quite well when you told me, we, the journalists, could do some more stats.  When I asked you what you dislike the most in handball, you said: “That you guys don’t do enough stats!”  True, there’s almost no reliable or really interesting statistic in handball. Because what does …

Wild Card – can you pay me?

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By Sascha Staat It’s been a wild ride for Norway’s male national handball team over the past few months.  In January they made it to the semi-final of the European championship for the first time ever, just to lose to Germany in dramatic fashion.  Kai Häfner scored seconds from the end, during overtime, to make sure the self-declared “Bad Boys” …

“We received outstanding feedback on the new Champions League format.”

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Photo: EHF On the weekend of the men’s EHF Final 4 in Cologne, stregspiller.com’s Sascha Staat had the chance to sit down with EHF general secretary Michael Wiederer, who is set to become the federation’s next president in August, for an exclusive one-on-one talk.  Read in part one of the interview what the Austrian had to say about the new …

A Pro-Sport needs Pro-People

Stregspiller Sascha Staat Unplugged, News 1 Comment

By Sascha Staat In case you’re looking for an article full of praise and compliments, well, then you’re definitely wrong here.  However, if you like a deeper look at what’s currently going wrong in handball, then sit down, relax and, hopefully, “enjoy” – although the general content is hardly positive.  But what can you make of a sport where teams …

“This one is for the ages”

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By Sascha Staat “History will be made”, that’s a claim used most recently by the NBA, if I’m not totally mistaken.  To be honest history is made every summer when the various sports leagues around the world crown their champions. But what Thüringer HC accomplished on Saturday was truly historic.  For a record sixth time in a row, the team …