GERMANY: INTERVIEW WITH INDOOR NATIONAL COACH DOMINIC GISKES

Dominic Giskes … zum Kader

“From our point of view, it is a very cool and exciting squad with a good mix of experienced Bundesliga players, players who have already played for the Feld-Danas plus a few indoor specialists. Although there are no players from the last European Indoor Championships team, in my opinion we have a very experienced team with really cool personalities. Everyone on the team was enthusiastic about this project from the start, regardless of whether they were players or staff members. Of course we want to get the most out of sport, that means the European title.”

 … to the experienced players. 

“One of the experienced players in the squad is definitely Elisa Gräve, who has already played in a World Field Championship. She hasn’t played that many games indoors yet, but she has experience in international matches. She has also won many titles at the DHC in recent years. Just like Pia Lhotak, who is really good in the hall and who I saw as an experienced player. Fenja Poppe must also be mentioned, who has shown really good Bundesliga performances at the HTHC over the years. Finally there is Maike Schaunig, who played a lot on the field for DANAS.”

… to the team’s expectations of itself and the expectations of the team

“Of course we want to get to the final and be on the field in the last game of the tournament on Sunday. That has to be the aim and of course, we want to win. I think it’s even more possible this year since Holland isn’t there, so we’re already the top favorites. Even though we don’t have many international matches overall and have never played together in this configuration. The girls are all smart enough that we can build something in a week and everyone is up for it.”

… to the group opponents

“The group is difficult to assess, we haven’t seen much about the opponents yet. To me, the Czech Republic looks like the strongest team in the group. I can’t really assess Spain and Turkey, we’ll have to get there relatively quickly and gather impressions, but that’s our turn now. I rate Austria highly in the other group.”

… to prepare for the tournament

“We’ll meet on February 4th. in Berlin, then have a few training sessions there, play training games on site. We have to train somewhere else for the first two days because the ground in the Horst-Korber Sports Center is not yet there, but from Tuesday we will be in the venue and have training games there too.”

The tournament for the German team starts on February 8th with the game against Spain.