Antje Döll: chasing the EHF EURO ticket and criminals

Ukraine and Germany each have six points on their account, but the unbeaten Germans played one match less by now, as they will face Israel twice on Saturday and Sunday. The German side had beaten Ukraine in the reverse fixture in October 31:24 followed by two clear wins against Slovakia in February – which means both sides would clinch their EHF EURO 2024 berth with a draw. If Germany win, they are already confirmed group winners; in all other constellations, the final decisions will be taken in the final round.

“Though we are the favourites against Ukraine, we take the match extremely seriously, knowing that we can tick the EHF EURO ticket already on Thursday,” says left wing Antje Döll. At the age of 35, she is the oldest player in the German squad and will have a small jubilee against Ukraine, playing her 75th international match. Döll was a kind of “late starter”, as she had her first international match in June 2017 at the age of 28. 

Döll and her German teammates have six (home) matches ahead in only 11 days – and two tickets are up for grabs. First, those three remaining EHF EURO qualifiers at Heidelberg until 7 April, then from 11 to 14 April the three matches at the Olympic Qualification Tournament at Neu-Ulm against Slovenia, Montenegro and Paraguay.

“This is a much bigger task compared to the first three matches, but we want to come in the right flow and find our rhythm against Ukraine and Israel to be on a high to get this coveted ticket to Paris,” says Döll. “Therefore, we will put all our effort in the match against Ukraine to have the chance to rotate against Israel.” Since 2008, no German women’s handball team has qualified for the Olympic Games. “I hope the time has come now,” says Döll after finishing seventh at the EHF EURO 2022 and sixth at the 2023 IHF World Championship.

But before dreaming of Paris, they need to win the Highlight Match of the Qualifiers. “We definitely do not underestimate Ukraine, as they gave us a big fight in the first half of the reverse fixture. They have physically strong players, but if we play with high speed, we expect to be stronger.” For Döll, the ticket to the EHF EURO 2024 would be special, as she missed the 2022 edition due to an injury – her only European championship appearance was during Covid-19 times in 2020 in Denmark.

The German overall balance against Ukraine is positive: 14 victories and only five defeats in 19 matches – but the biggest defeat really hurt. At the EHF EURO 2010, both sides faced in Larvik, Norway, in the final match of the preliminary round. Germany could even lose by eight goals to still proceed to the main round. But the final result was 23:33 and Germany took their return flight much earlier than expected. And for the first time in the EHF EURO history before and after, they failed to qualify for the second stage.

For Döll personally, it is not only crunch time with the national team, but also at club level. Since 2015, she plays for SG BBM Bietigheim and after becoming four-time German champions, now Döll and her club made history in the EHF Champions League Women, qualifying for the first ever quarter-finals in the club's history. Since Thüringer HC in 2015, Bietigheim are the second ever German team in this stage of the EHF Champions League, since the current playing system was implemented in the 2013/14 season.

After missing the play-offs by one single goal one year ago, EHF European League 2021/22 winners Bietigheim made it to the knockout stage this year, but were the underdogs against the Danish side Ikast. “Right after losing the German cup final, we wanted to prove our true strength – and we made it. We told ourselves that we have another final against Ikast, but this time for 120 minutes.” 

After a 29:27 win on home ground, a 31:31 draw at Ikast was enough to proceed. In the quarter-finals, Döll and her side face Odense again, the club that defeated Bietigheim twice in the group phase. “In the first match, our goalkeeper Melinda Szikora got severely injured and in the reverse fixture we were leading at the break. I am sure that we are not chanceless and everything can happen in those two matches,” says Döll, knowing that Bietigheim can write another chapter of history, becoming the first German team ever at the EHF FINAL4 in Budapest.

“My husband and I are currently planning our summer holidays, which is not that easy, as we are still in the race for Budapest with Bietigheim and for Paris with Germany – but as my husband is a handball player too, he knows what is more important,” Döll says with a smile.

In the upcoming weeks, Antje Döll is chasing those three tickets to the EHF EURO 2024, the Olympic Games and the EHF FINAL4, and in her daily life besides handball, she is chasing criminals as detective superintendent in the department of residential burglary at the Police in Ludwigsburg. “I can arrange my police job with my handball job thanks to the fact that in our Federal State special jobs are offered to sportsmen and sportswomen who are part of a national team. I am thankful to be in this program, as I like to have both tasks. I can partly work from home – and all fits perfectly with playing handball on a professional level.” 

Döll is the only Bietigheim player with a regular job apart from handball – and funny enough, she took her first ever German championship with the police team of Baden-Württemberg in 2013 – five years after becoming U20 World Champions with Germany.

Photos © Marco Wolf