Germany's defence forced Switzerland into mistakes and set the ground for easy goals, thus winning 36:27 and preventing the Swiss team from grabbing their first-ever win against Germany. Player of the Match, presented by Grundfos Xenia Smits led Germany with five goals out of five attempts in 35 minutes.
GROUP II
Switzerland vs Germany 36:27 (14:18)
- after the initial 2:1 lead for Switzerland, with a second Katharina Filter save Germany set a two-goal lead and were in front until the 19th minute
- Switzerland had a hard time against Germany's strong 6-0 defence, but they took the most out of Germany's technical faults later in the game and grabbed an equaliser in the 19th minunte (10:10)
- Germany powered ahead with fast breaks — first to a four-goal lead at half-time, and kept pouncing in the first five minutes of the second half, setting a decisive 21:15 lead
- when Germany's centre back Alina Grijseels scored for 35:24 it marked her 80th EHF EURO goal; Julia Behnke and Xenia Smits passed 50 EHF EURO goals for Germany
- Switzerland could not keep up, but line player Tabea Schmid remained their top scorer with eight goals
Germany's improved efficiency
Germany's good start to the main round continues as they have not lost a round 1 game at this stage since 2014, when they were defeated against Montenegro. Markus Gaugisch’s team had some trouble at the start, but later improved their attacking efficiency and by half-time scored 18 times. This is their highest number of goals scored in 30 minutes so far at the EHF EURO 2024, with their previous highest being 15.
The high scoring efficiency transferred also to the second half and allowed the coach to have more rotation within the team. It was the 47th minute when Germany netted their 30th goal, for which they usually needed all 60 minutes at this tournament, against Iceland and Ukraine.
The final 36:27 result is the third time in the EHF EURO history Germany have scored 36 goals — they netted 36 against both Slovakia in 2014 and the Netherlands in 2022. The success was accomplished by Alexia Hauf's six goals, and five from Alina Grijseels and Xenia Smits.
We were four behind and caught them, and also in the half-time we were behind four, so of course we thought, OK, maybe we can keep up again like we did in the first half. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t.
We wanted to improve more and more during the tournament because we know we have a good defence but we want to use this for scoring fast goals. Today we showed that we can do it. I am happy that we delivered like this and that we have the two points in the main round.
