Juri Knorr: Will he become Germany’s best player in the Handball World Cup?
Updated on 01/11/2023 at 05:15 PM
- Today, the World Handball Championship begins in Sweden and Poland, and on January 13, Germany will participate for the first time in the tournament.
- Many eyes will be on Juri Knorr.
- The 22-year-old could become the discovery of the World Handball Championship – if he uses his full potential.
Although Juri Knorr is the youngest in the German Handball World Cup squad, the 22-year-old is not inexperienced. Knorr made his national team debut at the age of 20, having previously worked on DHB’s U17-19 youth teams. Always accompanied by high expectations.
These predictions are ahead of the Handball World Cup Poland And Sweden do not decrease (All games on TV And Join us on the live stream). The upcoming tournament could be Juri Knorr’s breakthrough into the German national team – if he can pull off his performance.
Two Faces Yuri Knorr
“He will be very important for us in this tournament and in the future,” national team coach Alfred Gislason said about the young backcourt player from Rhein-Nikkar-Lewin. “We have high hopes for him.” But what the national coach also said after defeat in the first two friendlies against Iceland shortly before the World Cup: “He’s playing a great game, but only for 40 minutes.” Instead, he made “expensive mistakes” in the closing stages.
And these are just two sides of Juri Knorr: there is genius, and carelessness, and omnipotence, and self-confidence. But there are also painful losses of the ball, an occasional lack of concentration, and an overshoot.
Much of that can be traced back to age. Despite Knorr’s experience, 22 is still incredibly young. And now the great moments outweigh him anyway In the second friendly match against Iceland Proved. Knorr’s genius flashed again and again, especially in interacting with the circuit players Johannes Gola and Janik Kohlbacher. It is not for nothing that he is currently in third place in the list of top scorers of the HBL with 117 goals.
World champion coach Heiner Brand also appeared Sports 1 Excited about Knorr: “He’s developed very well. His style of play means he takes some responsibility, often trying to break through in one-on-ones and throwing cheeky jabs from behind.”
Tough time for Jory Knorr
It wasn’t long in coming that the son of former Bundesliga pro Thomas Knorr would be seen as a beacon of hope ahead of the World Cup. Because while Knorr’s great talent was undisputed at all times, the handball hopeful faced intense hostilities during the peak phase of the Corona pandemic. His refusal to be vaccinated after surviving the Corona infection was explained as a weakness of personality. “The Kimmich of Handball” was just one of the headlines he had to read about himself. “I don’t have to beat around the bush. It was a tough time for me,” Knorr recently explained in an interview with the Sports Information Service (SIDE). “A lot of things hurt and upset me. It’s hard for me to talk about it because it was so difficult. It was an important lesson and experience that I had. It definitely made my conclusions. It gave me experiences, which I will use later on.”
In any case, now he wants to make sports headlines in the national team. Before the start of the World Cup, Knorr moderated expectations: “I’m not going to put too much pressure on us as a team. We just don’t have the experience as the others, that’s a fact.” However, he sees potential: “But we’ve got a good squad and we can play our way into the flow. Then we’ll be hard to beat.” Especially when Knorr shows what he can do.
Sources used:
- German news agency (dpa)
- Sports Information Service (SID)
- Rhein-neckar-loewen.de: Juri Knorr
- sportbild.de: All your World Cup hopes lie in this DHB gem
- sport1.de: A World Cup myth? That’s what Icon Brand says
- sueddeutsche.de: A very talented person who makes costly mistakes