Now, at the age of only 26, Jakobsen is a two-time world champion, Olympic silver medallist, and EHF EURO bronze medallist – and was very close to the winners’ podium at the Men's EHF EURO 2024 in Germany. In the end, the Danes won silver, defeated by France after 70 minutes of an intense and thrilling final at Cologne.
After some days of disappointment, Jakobsen now has different emotions: “Of course we are proud now. We were very disappointed after the game, but after a while, of course we are proud of our performance,” says Jakobsen, who scored 20 goals in nine EHF EURO matches.
The time to switch from the national team to club level was short for him and his SG Flensburg-Handewitt teammates: six days after the EHF EURO final, SG played the quarter-final of the German cup, defeated former EHF Champions League winners Hamburg 37:25 and qualified for the final tournament in Cologne.
When SG start their main round campaign of the EHF European League on Tuesday on home ground against Bjerringbro-Silkeborg (20:45 CET, live on EHFTV), they have already played two more Bundesliga matches. For Jakobsen it was no problem to turn from Denmark to Flensburg in a short term: “It was OK. I missed my teammates and my life in Flensburg.”
In terms of teammates, no other club had more Danish EHF EURO players in their roster than Flensburg: besides Jakobsen, there are Simon Pytlick, Lukas Jørgensen, Johan Hansen and Mads Mensah Larsen. In total, seven Danes are part of the team. So, is it more a Danish than a German club?
No, says Emil Jakobsen: “There are a lot of Danes in Flensburg, but Flensburg and the club are still German. It is important for the club, the fans and everyone around it that we speak German, and therefore it is clearly a German club.”
Since the start of the season, even a Dane is the coach of SG, Nicolej Krickau, who had coached Jakobsen, Pytlick and Jørgensen before at GOG, the two-time Danish champions and EHF Champions League participants. “Flensburg and GOG have a bit of the same mentality so they can be compared. It was great to bring Nicolej Krickau to the club, he's a good coach so I'm very happy that he came,” says the left wing.
Krickau became the successor of Maik Machulla last summer – one of the reasons why SG went separate ways with the former coach was missing the EHF Finals on home ground due to a home defeat in the EHF European League quarter-finals against Granollers. For Emil Jakobsen, this is still kind of a shock moment: “It is obvious that this was a huge disappointment. Especially because we could have played the EHF Finals at home. But it gave us more motivation for this season.”
It was a huge disappointment, especially because we could have played the EHF Finals at home. But it gave us more motivation for this season.
