Stefan Kretzschmar

Stefan Kretzschmar (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtɛfan ˈkrɛtʃmar]; born 17 February 1973) is a retired professional German handball player. He was a three-time Olympic athlete and winner of the Olympic silver medal with the German team in 2004.

He was the sporting director at Füchse Berlin between 2020 and 2025. and a handball expert on the streaming service Dyn Media. He was included in the European Handball Federation Hall of Fame in 2023.

Career

Kretzschmar is considered part of the Lemgo 'golden generation' together with Daniel Stephan, Christian Schwarzer, Florian Kehrmann, and Volker Zerbe, who won the European Championship together. He started playing handball at the age of 6, and at the age of 12, he joined a training program in Berlin, which led to him joining the youth team at SC Dynamo Berlin, where he came to play as a left wing. Two years later, he won the DDR youth championship with the club.

In the 1991/92 season, he became a first team player at the Handball-Bundesliga team Blau-Weiß Spandau, which had just fused with SC Dynamo Berlin. With 125 goals, he was the team topscorer.

Gummersbach

In 1993, he joined VfL Gummersbach under Heiner Brand. He debuted for the German national team later the same year on October 8th 1993 against Switzerland. In 1994, he was chosen as the German player of the year, and represented the German team at the 1994 European Championship in Portugal as his first major international tournament. Germany finished 9th and Kretzschmar was part of the all star team.

In 1995, he was for a second time named German player of the year. In 1996, he was removed from the German national team due to disagreements with the newly appointed head coach, his former club team coach, Heiner Brand.