Paul Drux (left) of Germany attempts to score past of Mahmoud Khalil of Egypt during their round of 16 match in Doha on Monday. (Reuters)

The French may have brought three of their 2001 world champions (Daniel Narcisse, Jerome Fernandez and Thierry Omeyer) to Doha, but one can barely find a player from the 2007 gold medal-winning German team: the lone exception is then back-up goalkeeper Carsten Lichtlein.
The Germans opted to invest in a new generation of players and fielded a renewed team which hit the headlines with their impressive group stage run.
One of the players who surprised the specialists with his performance during the opening stage was 19-year-old Paul Drux, the youngest member of the nationalmannschaft.
The Fuchse Berlin left back was Dagur Sigurdsson’s regular choice, staying on the court for almost three hours in the first five games, fourth among the Germans. He found the net nine times and served six assists. Everyone who saw the youngster from Gummersbach in action offered words of praise for his talent and potential.
Drux began playing handball at age five in SSV Marienheide, joined giants VfL Gummersbach in 2007 and made a huge leap in 2011 when he signed a contract with Berlin’s ‘Foxes’.
Following his heroics with Germany’s youth team which won gold at the 2012 European Championship and a DHB Cup with Fuchse, he surprisingly received a call-up by Sigurdsson for the first time last September for a friendly game against Switzerland, after only 21 Bundesliga appearances to his tally.
“I was surprised as well, I didn’t expect to play that soon for the national team,” Drux admits. “I said to myself though, ‘here is your chance’, and I promise do my best to help our national team rise again.”
Drux, who studies industrial engineering, believes that there is life besides sports and holds that although handball at that level is very demanding and competitive, one will never enjoy it if he never tries to discover its joyous side as well.
Germany’s mostly young players are surely having the time of their life in Doha and enjoying early success, although few expected them to reach that level of play.
“I don’t know what people believed, but we came here counting that we would definitely beat Argentina and Saudi Arabia and that we would have serious chances to defeat Russia and Poland. The game in which we pushed ourselves beyond our limits was that against Denmark.”
After four wins and a draw at the group stage, Drux is longing for the start of the next challenge, the knock-out games.
“I feel really excited with what I have seen so far. I will try my best to help my team progress and reach the highest possible ranking.”
The first obstacle for Germany at the knock-out stage were the Pharaohs, who despite finishing fourth in their group, held off Sweden and had a large contingent of fans cheering for them every game. Germany got past them 23-16 to set up a clash with hosts Qatar in the quarter-finals.