After their historic success, the German U20 national team sang along to the national anthem, overwhelmed and simply full of happiness. "It was very difficult under all the circumstances, but we have grown together incredibly," said U20 national coach Tobias Abstreiter after their well-deserved entry into the knockout phase, "belief has now carried us into the quarter-finals." For the first time ever, a German U20 team has made it into the last eight at a World Cup, and after the problems since arriving in Canada, this achievement is all the more impressive.
“After we only had 14 field players, almost everyone wrote us off,” said captain Tim Stützle, who, together with John Peterka, made the difference in the 5-4 win against Switzerland. The future Ottawa Senators professional said that everyone accepted their role and played smart. “We didn’t want to see the whole situation as an excuse,” said Stützle, “we just wanted to do our job.” This was so convincing that even DEB-President Franz Reindl promptly sent a big congratulations across the pond on New Year's Eve: "The year couldn't end better. A huge compliment even after all the bad omens. It really is a fantastic achievement."
The Abstreiter team laid the foundation for this in their brilliant performance against Finland (3:5) and then in the overtime win against Slovakia, when defender Mario Zimmermann scored the decisive 4:3. This opened up the opportunity to finish Group A third in the table. And against the Swiss it was ultimately the outstandingly effective first third with two goals from Peterka and one from Stützle. “I'm so proud of the team, it's so special because we all work so well together. We totally deserved it and I can hardly wait for the quarter-finals,” said Stützle, who, along with Peterka, is now one of the top three scorers in the entire tournament.
But there was also great joy about the two days off from playing, which came in very handy for the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund selection after the recent exertions. The quarter-final duel on January 2, 2021 will take place as a kind of New Year's present, so to speak, and the team found out who their opponents - Russia or the USA - were on New Year's Eve. And after what they have now achieved, the Abstreiter team can only win anyway, carried by enormous enthusiasm and their motto "Why not us?" An idea that head coach Abstreiter had - and which found visual expression on T-shirts. "It is a great symbol to always believe in yourself and your identity," said Abstreiter. Interim sports director Christian Künast added: "Our path continues, we are not at the end yet."
Of course, the return of five outfield players also gave the team a boost and new energy. With their efforts, Maksymilian Szuber, Lucas Flade, Filip Reisnecker, Josh Samanski and Markus Schweiger created the opportunity to distribute the ice time a little better and, last but not least, to relieve the load on the top line with Stützle, Peterka and the tireless Florian Elias. “It was extremely important that we had more players back. They only had two training sessions, but they worked really hard to be able to come back so quickly,” said Stützle and rightly summed up: “Everyone has their share in this success, not just the team, but also everyone around it. Everyone helped where they could.”
