There would have been enough beginnings to quarrel; about the schedule, the injuries, about the first leg, in which SC Magdeburg gave away a five-goal lead. None of this was heard from the SCM. There was only this one game in which, despite adverse circumstances, anything would be possible.

It is not only in professional handball that you have to prepare for the worst-case scenario and, as a precaution, to imagine the hopelessness of your own situation. To praise the opponent over the green clover. Or to try to lower your own pressure by stacking low on how important the next game actually is.

Great things were to be achieved here

The Magdeburgers resisted this before the second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals in their own hall against Wisla Plock. Coach Bennet Wiegert spoke highly of his own team, which was enormously weakened by substitutes. He urged the fans to turn the Getec Arena into an impregnable fortress. And during the last days before the game, he didn't say anything in public.

Afterwards, if something worked, it's always easy to explain why. In the case of SC Magdeburg, it has to be acknowledged that the attitude with which this club went into the game on Wednesday evening was exactly the right one: great things were to be achieved here. And everyone went along with it. The SCM prevailed after a 22:22 in the first leg with 30:28.

Reaching the final round in Cologne for the first time in mid-June is not only a success because of the lavish prize money that makes future work easier – the winner will receive one million euros. This is the next accolade for the image of the German champions, after he recently won the Club World Cup twice.

In the scene, no one is surprised anymore that courted stars like the Swede Felix Claar move to Magdeburg and not to Paris in the summer, or that established forces like Gísli Kristjánsson extend their contracts and resist Barcelona. After years of dreariness, Magdeburg has developed into a European handball centre, which is primarily due to the work of coach and sports director Wiegert.

Now he could have criticized the Handball Bundesliga (HBL) for "rewarding" the SCM for reaching the quarter-finals with difficult league games before and after the first knockout game - a tremendous and unnecessary stress test to which THW Kiel fell victim in the parallel game at Paris Saint-Germain and was eliminated. He could have pointed to five injured regulars, three of whom were out in the first leg. All of this would have been justified. But he didn't.

Wiegert's main merit in this quarter-final thriller is neither tactics, nor attitude nor switching skills in and against Plock. It's something else: he has committed his team to a big goal, rallied behind him and banned excuses. This mental preparation was worth more than the best match plan, the finest attitude to the opponent.