European Prospects

The U20 European Championships are still way ahead but the current German Senior National Team coach Dirk Bauermann told sport1.de that he thinks the current U20 National Team has a “great perspective to finish among the four best teams in Europe”.

What looks a bit weird at first sight is not that far away from reality as the current German 89 and 90 generation is the most talented for decades and these particular generations are not that loaded with talent in the rest of Europe. The best 89ers already were the core of last year’s U20 team that destroyed everything in Division B and this team that plays together for several years now may be ready for the big jump.

Having finished 9th at the U18 level two years ago, the main players like Elias Harris and Robin Benzing developed pretty well over the last two years as they have major responsibilities in their respective teams and the confirmation of the scoring talent of Christian Standhardinger can give the team an additional boost.

Serbia is of course the main candidate for Gold this summer while Lithuania looks pretty nice too. The questions remain though which players will go directly to the Senior team. A problem that will particularly affect Spain where Ricky Rubio won’t be with the U20 anymore and the team can not compete anymore on the top level. Additionally, Latvia that won bronze two years ago won’t probably repeat that extraordinary performance while France looks decent. For Greece, the main question is of course if Kosta Koufos will join or not.

So seeing Germany playing a semi-final is not that strange anymore if you take into consideration all these factors. But it is still far away and a lot can happen in between.