Now there are two of them, number 18 under the foxes’ hall roof. Not only the former captain Iker Romero is remembered here, who has graced the gallery of heroes alongside Petr Stochl and Diethard Finkelmann, on Sunday Hans Lindberg also received this honor. Before the game against Frisch Auf Göppingen, which the Foxes won 34:27 (17:13), the Danish right winger was included in the ranks of the club’s legends.
“I knew the honor was coming today, so I was a few percent more excited. That’s something special, of course,” admitted the veteran. However, Lindberg, who had just turned 41, did not notice the excitement.
He immediately showed what he had done to earn the award. After almost a minute and a half, he skilfully passed the ball past the opposing goalkeeper and scored the first goal for his team. Shortly thereafter, he followed up from the seven-meter line.
It was almost as if he had it in his head before the game that he wanted to set new records this year. After dethroning his compatriot Lars Christiansen in December with the most converted penalties in the Handball Bundesliga, the next record could fall this year. If last season’s top scorer continues his performance, he should catch up with world handball player Yoon Kiung-shin this season with his 2905 goals at the top of the all-time scorer list.
He had already scored 2,759 goals before kick-off on Sunday – and the trend is rising sharply. Because against Frisch Auf it was above all Lindberg’s name that resounded through the hall when the goal account was screwed.
Meanwhile, opponents Göppingen initially sold well in positional attack, but failed again at Berlin goalkeeper Dejan Milosavljev. The decisive factor, however, was that Kresimir Kozina’s defense was sometimes excessively hard. Already in the 26th minute the former Füchse player had to say goodbye to the action after a red card, four minutes earlier national player David Schmidt had been disqualified after a foul.
From then on, the two top performers were only allowed to watch the game from the sidelines and had to watch as Lindberg scored goal after goal. The Dane scored nine goals at half-time and contributed a total of twelve goals.
But the rest of the Berlin team also sold well. Fabian Wiede managed the creative center together with Jacob Holm, Mathias Gidsel again caused problems for the Göppingen defense with his speed and incidentally drew both red cards.
The 6,892 spectators in the Max-Schmeling-Halle were also able to celebrate a goal from new circle player Max Darj, who made it 26:20 in the 41st minute. The guests were able to reduce the gap that had increased to ten goals in the meantime, but over time they noticeably ran out of strength. Especially since the team from Baden-Württemberg was thrown back a good ten minutes before the end of regular time by another red card for Josip Sarac.
Meanwhile, the foxes were able to relax and give interim coach Bob Hanning Hans Lindberg a well-deserved break for the last quarter of an hour.
