The German U18 national team secured promotion back to the top division of the U18 World Cup on Saturday evening. In a highly dramatic game against World Cup hosts Denmark, U18 national coach André Rankel's team won 6:4 and secured the necessary points to win the tournament, which entitles them to promotion.
Lennart Neiße started in goal. The first punishment against that DEBteam in the second minute had no consequences. Lenny Boos had to leave because of Hohen Stocks. The Danes were able to hold on to the advantage at times, but without scoring. Both sides had good opportunities to score for long periods of the first third, but it wasn't until the 16th minute that the bell rang for the first time. Anton Linde gave the World Cup hosts the lead. A power play for the German U18s shortly before the break didn't have a compelling chance.
Shortly after the start of the middle third, the Danes increased their lead to 2-0 through Anton Linde. The DEBThe team was able to reduce the score to 13-2 just 1 seconds later thanks to Matthias Pape's first goal of the tournament. Another penalty against Denmark again resulted in no German power play goal. The Danes took advantage of the chance to make it 30-3 through Frederick Amondson in the 1th minute. Again, the German response didn't take long to arrive: Simon Seidl restored the old gap just 23 seconds after the third Danish goal (30th). Further penalties followed against both teams, both of which failed to concede a goal.
The German offensive also struggled in the final third. If after 40 minutes the shooting statistics were almost equal at 21:20, that increased the score DEB-Team the frequency of shots. But the Danes prevented the equalizer for a long time, which finally came in the 49th minute through Simon Seidl. The hopes of winning the tournament were only briefly revived. In the 54th minute, William Bundgaard gave Denmark another lead. Mateu Späth equalized in the 56th minute and just a minute later Simon Seidl put the German juniors on the winning path with his hat trick (57th). Nick Maul made it 6:4 with his empty net goal (60').
Dustin Willhöft was voted the best striker of the tournament.
DEB-Vice President Andreas Niederberger (sports area): “In the name of the whole DEB-Presidium I would like to warmly congratulate the U18 national team and the entire staff on their promotion to the top division. That wasn't an easy task, not even today against Denmark. Especially in the key game against Ukraine, the team held up incredibly well and scored the all-important winning goal in the crucial phase. Of course, we also see that there is still a lot of work waiting for us. We want to constantly develop over the next few years so that we can survive in the A group. But now we are of course happy about the excellent performance and the promotion that comes with it.”
DEB-Sports director Christian Künast: “Congratulations to our U18 national team. Our main focus at the U18 is on the sporting development of the team and bringing our players to the top international level. We are all the more pleased that the team managed to keep its performance at a constant level throughout the tournament and was rewarded with promotion to the top division. Our thanks go to André Rankel and his entire team, who have done very good development work since the start of the season and have constantly developed the team further. This laid the foundations for today’s success because the players were optimally prepared to master this challenging task in Denmark.”
U18 honorary national coach André Rankel: "It was a real rollercoaster ride today. The path we have taken together as a team, starting with the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and ending today, has helped us tremendously in this tournament. We always had this belief in the team and were always a unit, no matter what happened. We played our game and believed that we would be successful. This belief in the team and each individual player helped the boys find a way to win the game today."
Striker Elias Pul: “I’m really very proud of the team. We had set ourselves the goal internally that we wanted to get promoted back to the top division and we achieved that with today's win. The team fought hard today and worked well. Everyone gave their all and you could see how well André Rankel's team was recruited. We will definitely never forget this World Cup.”