Schmid: "This was an extremely long journey”

But this match marked the international start for an extra-ordinary career. A career, which at least partly comes to an end on Tuesday 5 December 2023, 19 years later, in Stadthalle Sursee. When the European League match HC Kriens-Luzern vs AEK Athens throws off at 18:45 CET, handball legend Andy Schmid will play the last European Cup match of his career.

Still, Schmid will continue playing for his national team, will be part of the world-record-breaking opening match of the EHF EURO 2024 in Dusseldorf, when hosts Germany face Switzerland, and he still will continue playing for Kriens-Luzern in domestic competitions until the end of this season before he becomes Swiss national team coach in June 2024.

But, the story of his European Cup matches will come to an end, as Kriens-Luzern missed qualification for the main round of the EHF European League. In group B they will finish below TSV Hannover-Burgdorf (GER) and Gornik Zabrze (POL), while a draw is enough to finish third ahead of Athens, but Scmid definitely wants to finish victorious.

“We are disappointed, as we had had the goal to proceed to the main round. We knew that Hanover are better than us, but we were sure that we could finish second,” says Schmid. For him, two aspects were crucial for the failure; “First, we are internationally less experienced than our opponents. For Kriens-Luzern this was the first big international season. Second, our key players Fabian Böhm and Marin Sipic were injured at the start and returned too late to help us make our way to the main round.”

Schmid did all he could do. By scoring 55 goals in five matches – an average of an incredible 11 per match – he did his job. Last week, when Kriens-Luzern took a 30:30 draw at Hanover, and in round 3, when his side lost 28:32 at Zabrze, Schmid netted 14 times each – no one else in the EHF European League currently has a record like this. But his goals were not enough, “We could have won at Zabrze and at Athens, but mainly the away defeat at Poland broke our necks. We did not stand the pressure.”

But personally, he feels proud, “I could prove that a 40-year-old man still is able to perform on highest level in a top competition. But this is unfortunately no consolation for getting kicked out from the competition far too early.”

In general, the new EHF European League Men with 32 participants felt “like an EHF Champions League” for Schmid, “With the new structure, many teams with Champions League names and Champions League squads play in the European League. Of course, you have some teams, which did not gain points in this round, the gap to the top sides was quite huge, but overall, the European League is brilliant, as the quality is extremely high.”

Schmid does not have too many doubts that after 19 seasons in European club competition it is time to say farewell on Tuesday, “I know that my clubs plan something, but I do not want to make a big thing out of it. But I know, this was an extremely long journey!”

Everything started with Grasshoppers Zurich in the 2004/05 season in the Cup Winners’ Cup, when they were eliminated by German side Gummersbach in the third qualification round after winning the reverse fixture at Valur. Two more seasons in the EHF Cup followed with Grasshoppers, in 2006/07, Schmid steered his side to the semi-finals against eventual winners SC Magdeburg, followed by another semi-final appearance one year later in the Cup Winners’ Cup, when the club renamed ZMC Amicitia Zurich lost to Valladolid from Spain.

On 23 October 2009, a new era started for Andy Schmid – his first ever EHF Champions League match. And it started with a bang - the prolific centre and left back scored 13 goals in his debut and Zurich won 33:29 against Spanish favourites Ademar Leon. In the end, not even 49 strikes from Schmid were enough to make it to the main round.

Later, it was his EHF Champions League performances that put the Swiss record international caps holder's name on the big stage – as he went to Denmark, playing for BSV Bjerringbro-Silkeborg. He steered BSV to the Danish championship, but left after one year to make his lifetime dream come true: playing in the German Bundesliga. When he signed for Rhein-Neckar Löwen in 2010, nobody could guess that he would stay for 12 years, during which time he was awarded “best player of the Bundesliga” on five occasions.

In his very first year at Löwen, he made it to the EHF FINAL4 at Cologne. “I was not that Andy Schmid which you know now. I just had started to adapt and find my place in the team”, he recalls. Two years later, he was ready – together with stars such as Uwe Gensheimer, Kim Ekdahl du Rietz or Patrick Groetzki, Schmid stood on the winners’ podium of the first ever EHF Finals after beating hosts HBC Nantes in the EHF Cup final. “This was definitely my biggest success, it was the first ever trophy for our ambitious club, and from that moment on, we were ready to win more titles."

In 2016 and 2017 Schmid and Löwen became German champions, and German cup winners in 2018. Also, they won the German Super Cup three times in a row. Schmid played seven EHF Champions League seasons with Löwen overall and in the seasons 2015/16 until 2018/19 he scored an average of 80.5 EHF Champions League goals, thus was always among the top scorers.

In 2021, he made it to his third finals tournament of an EHF competition, but on home soil, Löwen failed to make it to the final of the newly implemented EHF European League. Then, his last international season for the German side ended with a shock defeat, as Löwen were eliminated in the third qualification round of the EHF European League by eventual winners Benfica.

After scoring 1675 goals in the Bundesliga and 612 strikes in EHF competitions, Schmid said farewell to Löwen in summer 2022, returning home to Switzerland. He became the mastermind behind HC Kriens-Luzern, steering his club to their first ever cup trophy by beating Kadetten Schaffhausen 32:30 in the final. In the final series of the league championship both sides locked horns again – and when Schmid tore his Achilles tendon on match day three and was ruled out until October, the dream of becoming Swiss champions came to an abrupt end. But as cup winners, Kriens-Luzern qualified for the group phase of the EHF European League for the first time.

“In my whole career, playing international matches was the icing on the cake for me, as those EHF European Cup or EHF Champions League matches are the reward for what you had earned in the previous season. Facing the best players in the world was always my motivation – and it was and is pure fun. So I will definitely enjoy my last international match on club level, like I had enjoyed so many before.”

After more than 150 EHF European Cup matches, in which he scored more than 800 goals, it is time to say farewell. “Adie, Andy!” – at least on European club level, but see you again for some more matches!

Photos © AS Sportfoto, Daniel Kuettel, EUROKINISSI