The Swiss handball team gets a helping hand at the European Championship in Oslo and makes it to the main round in extremis after all. Slovenia's victory over the Faroe Islands is celebrated accordingly by the SRF commentators.
The starting position ahead of the final group game at the European Handball Championship is precarious from a Swiss perspective. In order to avoid an early exit, the national team not only has to win its game against Montenegro, but also hope that Slovenia will help them to catch up with the Faroe Islands by 16 goals.
Andy Schmid's team did their own part with flying colors. Switzerland beat Montenegro 43:26 and put the Faroe Islands under considerable pressure for their game against Slovenia. If Slovenia wins, Switzerland is through.
At the start of the second half of the evening game, however, things did not look very promising. The Faroe Islands were briefly able to take a two-goal lead. However, the Slovenians then turned the game around and went four goals ahead.
And yet, in the final minutes, the Swiss trembled. The Faroe Islands came back to 27:29 and sniffed at winning a point before Slovenia finally put the lid on the game with a late goal - causing the SRF commentators to cheer exuberantly.
The Swiss handball players now believe in the big time
The Swiss now want to make history in the main round too. National coach Andy Schmid: "I have to be honest, I haven't been a coach for long, but it's comparable to the German championship that I won with the (Rhein-Neckar) Löwen. It's sensational. Twelve years ago, when we narrowly failed to become champions with the Löwen for the first time (Kiel had a goal difference that was two goals better), I cursed the handball god. Now I have to take it all back - there is a handball god."
How was it possible to beat Montenegro with a 17-goal difference? "I reckoned that Montenegro probably wouldn't invest everything and wouldn't fight for every goal once we took the lead. We wanted to make them give up at some point. But it's still incredible that we finished the game like that. It would have been presumptuous to expect a plus 17," said the five-time Bundesliga MVP.
Good structures and courage
SHV President Pascal Jenny wears his heart on his sleeve and thinks big. When he spoke to the team before Switzerland's final preliminary round match against Montenegro, he was already looking ahead to the next tournaments - the 2027 World Cup in Germany and the 2028 European Championship, which will be held in Switzerland and elsewhere. Even he no longer believed the team would progress to the main round, although Manuel Zehnder shouted from the back that it wasn't over yet.
Pascal Jenny used the word "historic" after the "miracle of Oslo". Although Switzerland had already reached the main round of the top twelve teams at a European Championship in 2004, only 16 teams took part back then - since 2020 there have been 24. "We've created a good structure," he says. "The structures are more professional. From the summer, there will also be a men's academy at the OYM in Cham. And I believe there is no alternative, because there is also investment all around." It was also courageous to appoint Andy Schmid as an icon with his attitude as national coach, to take what has been built up over the last ten years with Michael Suter to another dimension. "He wants to become a world coach and is on his way to doing so",
The mentality in the team has also changed for him: "The players and the coaching staff now believe in the big picture." Jenny is therefore convinced that the Swiss can also hold their own against Sweden, Croatia, Iceland and Hungary in the main round in Malmö. He even goes so far as to say: "You'll probably never have an easier group tableau again. Now we're in this main round. All four opponents are strong, but they can all be beaten on a good day."
First and foremost, however, Jenny wants to see further development: "Then I'll be happy regardless of the result." He makes no secret of the fact that his goal at the home European Championships is "to play for the medals if possible". That's why every game up until then should be used to improve. Meanwhile, Schmid hopes that "the miracle of Oslo" will give the team a boost. And maybe there will still be the "Miracle of Malmö".
