From Mortensen to Toft: The Danish goalkeeper legacy grows

While the overall record for most EHF EURO starts is higher — currently with France’s Siraba Dembele but looking as though it could go to Norway’s Katrine Lunde during this EHF EURO — Toft’s is a remarkable achievement playing for a highly competitive team such as Denmark. In a country with so many handball players and therefore such a cluster vying for a spot in the national side, holding a position in the team for so long is an impressive feat.

“That is crazy. I was a bit surprised and shocked,” says Toft of her reaction to hearing about this record. “I’m surprised but it’s an honour.”

Denmark have a legacy of world-class goalkeepers who have left their mark on the game. With almost 15 years in the national team plus All-star Team awards at two EHF EUROs and one IHF World Championship, Toft has certainly earned her place among them. She is also the current IHF World Player of the Year — the first goalkeeper since Norwegian Cecilie Leganger in 2001 and the first Dane since Anja Andersen in 1997. So, who did Toft look up to when she was younger and dreaming of doing exactly what she is now?

“For sure a lot of goalkeepers from Denmark — Kaspar Hvidt on the men’s side and then Lene Rantala, Karin Mortensen, Susanne Munk Wilbek. There was a lot of great goalkeepers many years ago,” says Toft.

In the early days of the Women’s EHF EURO, Denmark were the dominant force, winning three of the first five titles, including the first two editions in 1994 and 1996. The latest European trophy was won on home ground in 2002, when none other than Mortensen was named MVP. And the young Toft was watching the event and Mortensen closely, unaware she would later join the national team and learn directly from Mortensen herself.

“I remember in 2002, I think, when it was in Denmark, the tournament [EHF EURO], and Karin Mortensen was the MVP of the tournament. I was actually working — I was a young kid but I was a volunteer,” recalls Toft. “I was helping with the the international press conferences, so I was the little girl who went to the locker room and knock, knock, knock: ‘We need her and her and her.’ And I loved it.”

Toft played her first European Championship in 2012. Mortensen’s EHF EURO career stretched from 2000 to 2010, so while she and Toft did not cross over at the EHF EURO, they did in the national team.

“When I started on the national as a young [player], she was the goalkeeper then. It was so fun to work with her. I enjoyed it a lot and she taught me a lot,” says Toft. “That’s why when I was the oldest, then I also took care of the youngest, because she did that with me.”

Toft refers mainly to her role in the team now, with Althea Reinhardt, who made her EHF EURO debut in 2016 at the age of 20.

“I think it’s been a really nice journey she’s been on. I clearly remember the first time she was selected and she was so young,” says Toft. “Of course, we got older, both of us, but we got better and better to work together as she got older. We are a really good team.”

Only time will tell if Reinhardt will leave her own legacy as significant as so many other Danish goalkeepers before her. Aside from Toft and the idols she mentions as influential, one of the best-known goalkeepers in the game is in the current Denmark men’s side: Niklas Landin.

There are some coaches who remarkably have had influence on both Toft and Landin, such as Polish Antoni Parecki, who coached Toft at her first professional club, Holstebro, at the same time he coached Landin in the youth age category national teams. Now, both work with the same goalkeeper coach for Denmark, Michael Bruun.

But Toft did not always want to be a goalkeeper: “I wanted to be a playmaker. But my mother was my coach and I was goalkeeper in football, so she was like ‘nope, go into the goal.’ I was the only one who was not afraid, so it made sense.”

Now she is a unique goalkeeper. Alongside her saving skills, Toft has an uncanny ability to get in her opponents’ heads and cause any team to drop their shooting accuracy significantly when at her best. She can be a match decider on her own. But Toft is reserved when talking about her own style and they key to her performance.

“I’m not the biggest goalkeeper, you know, the tallest, so I have to… how to say… I have to seem bigger somehow. I have to do something to manage that,” says Toft.

The round 2 match will not only be a milestone for Toft but for Denmark, as it will be the side’s 100^th EHF EURO game. Coming into the game on the back of a 28:26 loss to Slovenia, the EHF EURO 2020 semi-finalists and 2021 World Championship bronze medallists are eager to reach their best level.

“We are of course disappointed. We wanted to start the tournament better, but we also know that the tournament is still long, and the chances are in our own hands still. If we win the two next games, then we’re back in the game. But of course it was a tough hit,” says Toft, before commenting on the clash with Serbia, starting at 20:30 CET on Sunday.

“It’s two teams who lost their first game, so it’s really important for both teams to win the next one. So for sure it will be some kind of war and both teams are disappointed and maybe with some insecurity or something in the team, so for sure it’s important to be the team who change the mentality and everything the quickest.”

photos © Jozo Cabraja / kolektiff