Knorr’s game: “I love playing quickly and taking some risks”

Like so many other elite players, handball was passed down to Juri Knorr through his genes. His father, Thomas, was a German international who played for top clubs such as THW Kiel, SG Flensburg-Handewitt and HSV Hamburg, and later became his son’s most important mentor.

“My father was the most influential person in my handball career. He coached me through almost all of my youth, and through him I saw what it takes to make my dream of becoming a professional handball player come true,” says the 25-year-old playmaker for Aalborg Håndbold and the German national team.

As a youngster, Knorr was not only a highly talented handball player, he was also tipped for a professional football career. At 15 or 16, he had to make a choice — and he chose to follow in his father’s footsteps. “It was an emotional decision — I simply enjoyed handball more. I preferred going to handball training over football training, also because I liked the sense of togetherness in handball better.”

After finishing school, Knorr — by then a youth international for Germany — was offered the chance to move abroad, and not to just anywhere, but to Barça. Then-Barça manager David Barrufet phoned his father after receiving a tip from former TSV Hannover-Burgdorf and Barça coach, Roi Sanchez, that there was a great talent up by the Baltic Sea.

“We’d played against Roi’s youth team, and I must have caught their eye. And when Barcelona calls you at some point in your life, you don’t really think twice about it. I’d just finished school and I went abroad like others do, only in my case everything revolved around handball,” says Knorr, who was signed to Barça’s reserve team but with the intention to be gradually integrated into the first team. “A few times I trained and played under Xavi Pascual back then. Moving to Barcelona made me realise that I could actually become a professional athlete.”

The foreign academy players lived together in shared flats of three.

“It was quite an adjustment, but my time in Barcelona gave me a lot; a new language, a new culture, and a different kind of handball. There, I didn’t have to lift weights in the gym every day but could develop individually in terms of technique and movement. The Spaniards are obsessed with detail; I learned so much and took a lot from it overall. It was my first time away from home, out of my comfort zone, standing on my own two feet. That was really exciting.”

Although he had a two-year contract, Knorr returned to Germany after just one year, in 2019, joining GWD Minden. “It was clear that the first team in Barcelona was still too far out of reach for me at that point, and I was also a bit homesick.”

In the very week of Germany’s first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, a dream came true: Knorr, then only 19, received his first call-up to the men’s national team. He was set to make his senior debut against the Netherlands on 13 March, which was also to be Alfred Gislason’s first match as national team head coach, just weeks before the Olympic qualifying tournament for Tokyo. But things turned out differently.

“We arrived on the Monday, and on Thursday evening we were told that Friday’s match was cancelled — and from Friday onwards the country was in lockdown. Totally crazy,” recalls Knorr.

Gislason and Knorr had to wait until October 2020 for their joint debut and, under strict Covid protocols, Germany began their qualification campaign for the EHF EURO 2022 against Bosnia and Herzegovina. In January 2021, Knorr played in his first major tournament, the World Championship in Egypt, where he was one of the tournament’s biggest revelations and has been a regular in the German team ever since.

“When I joined the German squad for the first time I was the youngest — it was still a completely different generation. After the Olympics in Tokyo, with the transition, many young players came in. Now, at 25, I’m already playing in the team of the older ones when we play football during warm-up,” says Knorr.

“At first, I didn’t really have a defined role, but I grew into it over time. I’m grateful that Alfred Gislason always showed trust in me, that helped me find my place to support the team. The same goes for Sebastian Hinze, who helped me a great deal as coach of the Rhein-Neckar Löwen.”

The next career step came in summer 2021, when Knorr moved to Löwen, and for one season he was able to play alongside one of his two great role models: Andy Schmid. “That was amazing — to learn from him,” says Knorr, for whom Iceland’s Aron Pálmarsson is the second great idol who shaped his style. But above all stood his father, Thomas, who still holds one achievement over his son: he remains the only German ever to finish as top scorer at a European Championship, in 1994, with 41 goals.

Juri Knorr has surpassed that number: at the 2023 World Championship, he was Germany’s top scorer with 53 goals, adding 52 assists, and earning his first All-star Team selection as Best Young Player. At the EHF EURO 2024, he scored 50 goals and was named All-star centre back. At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where he won silver with Germany, he finished second in assists, tenth in goals, and was once again included in the All-star Team.

But what kind of player is Juri Knorr? A playmaker? A shooter? Both?

“I think I have a special style, a mix of the two. I like directing the game, calling the tactics, and creating chances for my teammates. But at the same time, I want to be a scoring threat myself when the opportunity arises. It always depends on the playing style of the team I’m in.”

Today’s fast-paced handball suits Knorr perfectly: “I love playing quickly and sometimes taking risks, even if the coaches don’t always like it. But risk is part of the game. At the same time, I want to be mature and always play for the team.”

Regarding handball’s development in recent years, Knorr notes not only the increased speed but also the improved technical skill and passing quality of players.

“The player profiles today are totally different  — it’s not about size, like in basketball, but about technique and abilities such as one-on-one moves or the speed of decision-making. That’s great for handball, because it means many more players can succeed who might once have been overlooked because of their size. Now they have a completely new perspective.”

When comparing his own one-on-one game with, for example, Mathias Gidsel or Gisli Kristjansson, Knorr admits there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

“That’s something I have to work on, along with my defence. But it’s an ongoing process. And of course, Gidsel and Gisli are role models in terms of their moves. I also want to stay calmer, develop tactically. In general, I try to focus on my strengths. It’s crucial for me to believe in myself and always maintain respect for my goals and my game.”

After four years with Rhein-Neckar Löwen, Knorr made the move to Aalborg in the summer of 2025, where he is now playing in the Machineseeker EHF Champions League for the first time in his career.

“The club is very ambitious — a lot of people work extremely hard behind the scenes and in the arena to make us successful. For me, it was the next logical step. I was eager to go abroad again, to experience another language and culture, and to keep developing in handball. But even in Aalborg, I’m still on my journey.”

One of Knorr’s dreams, of course, is to appear at the TruckScout24 EHF FINAL4, and in that respect, he already has one advantage over many of his new teammates: he has already stood on the winner’s podium in front of 20,000 fans at the LANXESS arena in Cologne, when he led Rhein-Neckar Löwen to the 2023 German cup victory as the tournament's MVP. Yet Knorr says: “I never define my goals by titles. I’m grateful for every match, because you shouldn’t let yourself get fixated.”

Main & feature images © Fotograf René Schütze, Sylvia Goeres