The Bizarre Disappearance of Sri Lanka's ENTIRE National Handball Team | Hidden Stories 

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Respect to the people for helping Sri Lanka and not making fun of them But damn the “handball team” was dangerously smart

A movie called 'Machan' was made based on this story. Two Sri Lankan actors who came to Germany to shoot the film also disappeared 😂Thanks ANdy for your amazing content. Love and respect from Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

As Russian, I felt that. It's all about survival. People blame us and mock us for leaving the country, but if we don't- we become cannon folder. You have no idea how many people left Russia for Kazakhstan, Georgia, Thailand etc. I understand these Sri-Lanka "players"- everybody wants to LIVE.

Turns out that the photo I showed at 3:26 is not actually a real image of the handball team, it’s an image from the movie “Machan” about this incident 🤦‍♂️ the video footage from the games are all real though! I should’ve double checked the source of that image, that’s a good lesson for future videos. I also thought I had pinned a comment earlier but I guess it completely slipped my mind 😅

As an American, it touches me how humble and welcoming the Germans treated the Sri Lankans.

Andy of all the informative narratives online or on "TV", I consider your's to be the most interesting and sincere. Not only has your online presence and speaking gone from 'good' to "Amazing", but you have such passionate exuberance and, apparently, strong ethics. I don't know if anyone has offered your parents/guardians any credit, but it's obvious you were raised with the ability to be kind and compassionate. I hope your passion keeps you on track with your dreams and goals in life. I'm sure we'll see you as a superstar one day if that's your desire. 😊 As always, keep up the great work! ❤😃

I got addicted to your video shorts, and didn't realize that you also created longer videos. I'm excited to know that you do these too. I love your voice, your personality, and your content. Perfect in every way possible. Thank you.

Dietmar unintentionally made the lives of around 20 young men and their families better and raised awareness of Sri Lanka’s issues. What a legend.

God, you know it’s a good day when a new episode of Hidden Stories drops 😄

The movie "machang" is inspired from this story. Funny thing is two actors who went to italy to shoot this movie also disappeared.

ANDY-I love how you tell your stories! Your passion for doing a story justice is very evident! You and I may be from different places, but I, too, cannot tell a good story without using my hands! Part of the reason I started watching you was because of how you told your stories. I am so glad you are doing what you do. You do a great job, and I hope you continue to make our imaginations soar!! 😊 Best wishes to you for all of your future endeavors!!

These are the kind of stories that make me feel so lucky that I’m American. I feel as I take it for granted, because as this story states, it’s not as easy for people in other countries. And, I think Andy has turned into my online history teacher…

I love your storytelling, Andy. You have such passion and dedication to the stories that you tell. Thank you! ❤

Okay, this is the first time I watch your long vid, and I am completely impressed. Hope you do more of these. Thanks Andy

As a young sri Lankan living in Australia , thank you for telling this story about my country ❤😊

I wish Andy was my history teacher

I was *hooked* from the teaser trailer, and I don’t regret watching one of these _Hidden Stories_ for the first time.

Andy I can not appreciate the hidden stories intro enough, the music and the design of it is amazing.

Dietmar Doering had good reason to be angry. 15 years of hard work destroyed and the guarantors for the players also got problems. I'm glad he sympathized at the end, but it was for sure also a tough time for him. Hope everyone involved is doing well now.

I have so much respect to the German players and Dietmar for being so sympathetic with the players. They are honestly amazing people. Thank you for telling us their story!

Andy, I like you stories. I like that in the main, they are uplifting and add compassion. For instance yes, the man who unknowingly organized this felt betrayed you circled back to show his compassion and understanding for the “team members” struggles in Sri Lanka. Please keep that up. You have a way of adding in light and pointing out the good. Thank you. This is why I watch & subscriber to your channel. :)

This is the first time I have watched one of your videos, I enjoyed this. I have always watched your shorts

I took a volleyball class in College. Our teacher had defected from Czechoslovakia's volleyball ball team.

I'm from Sri Lanka, so thank you very much for talking about this fascinating story!!❤

It's so funny that you're using better help as your sponsor today or that they've agreed to sponsor you because I just started grief counseling yesterday I talked about it in my channel a little bit but my boyfriend of 6 years passed away three years ago and then 2 weeks later my niece who had come to stay with us committed suicide two weeks after we had buried my boyfriend died of cardiac arrest I never got grief counseling I ended up last year selling my house and moving to California and also then kicking some friends of 16 years to the curb because once I moved here they proved not to be the people I thought they were even after sixteen years of friendship so I am just started grief counseling and I'm talking about that on my channel now about how important mental health is so way to go Andy.. I love your stories, I've been a fellow subscriber for at least 2 years and I've always thought you were such an amazing young man very articulate with time where these stories worth listening to!! I bet your parents are very proud of you keep up the awesome work you have subscribers out here that love you❤❤❤

I really really enjoy the audio editing format you use, it works so insanely well. Your story telling is really awesome and it's difficult to click away.

You’re so underrated Andy. You make amazing content and deserve a TON of more views

So many countries are falling apart Andy it's just awful in my sixty years of life I've been just washing everything around the world fall apart in ways I never dreamed imagine when I was a little girl please keep bringing these sorries to light because you let us see how much darkness yet how much light there is in the world.. humanity itself is just struggling in general because the ratio of poor struggling people compared to the billionaire's is such a huge gap and those of us that are struggling are getting weaker all the time and while they're still up-and-coming millionaires and billionaires that number is still way smaller than the peons who are struggling in there was such a huge gap between us all everywhere everywhere around the world.. (don't mean anything negative by using the word peon I just mean those of us that are struggling compared to those that seem to have a lot more through either inheritance or something they worked for or new new companies new things that they have created that they are surviving and making money on you know we have more homeless people here in America then we do anything else and it's just so sad that it's everywhere it's not just America it's other countries as well and so many people are trying so hard to have a good life and it's just proving harder all the time) please keep up the great work of telling your stories because it lets us see that there are people out there that have the gumption to do something different to have a better life!!!!!! ❤❤❤❤

You are extremely good at telling stories. You are definitely the best I’ve seen so far.

The Pursuit of Happiness. This Andy is a great story teller. Thank you for these hidden stories!

I was so happy that it wasn’t another reason, like they had been taken or anything like that. Keep up the amazing work Andy. 🙏🙏

hey! i love your videos and it’s so interesting to see such deep dives into mysterious things like this, i loved the short videos but i love these even more, sometimes i was left on cliffhangers in the shorts but with this new style (already kinda old), it’s much more fascinating. i love your videos and keep up the amazing work! also betterhelp is a platform with many creepy and unprofessional therapists, i recommend you don’t accept any sponsorships from them in the future.

I find it so wholesome that the Germans were so understanding of the Sri Lankans

I just found out your channel! I like how you tell the stories and how trustworthy it is!

Gotta admit, that was a crazily brilliant way to get out of the country

Your long form content is really awesome! I love hearing a more in depth telling of your short form stuff. Keep up the good work!

Very kind of german to bring srilanka and very kind of you andy to make this video and giving me knowledge ❤

This guy make his video very interesting with gestures and the way he talk is so good that i cant skip the vids he uploads

i live in sri lanka but now only i get to know something like this happened in my own country. thank u andy. big fan

What happened with Deitmar after he understood the handball team decision to seek better for their families and themselves? Did he change his mode of helpfulness? Great story telling ANdy.

These videos are definitely gonna be popular later on. Giving my support from the beginning!

Andy always tell’s us amazing stories I Love you Andy!

I am from sr lanka.I should point out, at 3:24 That is not the real team and it was from the movie based on this story. Some of these images are from the movie. Oh and a similar story happened recently as well.

Andy had such a calming voice

I love your stories! ❤Thank you so much for creating them! 🤗

WOW, great story. Thank you for all you do.

This was super interesting! Italy sounds so nice to live in tbh, when you remove the bad stuff

His videos our on a different level

Fascinating as always, you are excellent in your presentations. My heart goes out to the people all over the world that are denied freedom by their own governments or by rebel groups who have over thrown legitimate governments.

Good story to listen to,at the end of a long day.Thanks Andy.

Andy is one one of the only youtubers that actually reads the comments Love You Man!

Have lived, worked in Sri Lanka, even during the war time. When I read handball team- say WHAT🤔, are you kidding?! As best I could tell cricket was the ONLY game in Sri Lanka, possibly the actual national religion! Don’t blame these guys for their scheme, pretty crafty.

Another great story! Thank you, Andy!

Consistently interesting and well presented episodes, Andy.

As always another interesting story delivered clearly and informative.

I just HATE the fact that the media distorts other people's opinions and defames them for money.

It's a shame the video at the time has less than 5000 views. These videos are very informative so i thing it deserves more attention.

Dude Your Videos are S+ cant stop watching Your so underrated 🎉 Your full videos and shorts have so much effort put in thanks for the great work ❤ (IK I’m just a stupid teenager but I hope 🤞 this comment brings you joy 😊)

Your narrating is Perfect

Thank you so much Andy for making sure to shed light on the truth. Thank you for making these fun and engaging. You're narrating skills, you're editing and even compilation of facts is beyond me. Well done, can't wait to see next week's Hidden Stories

I really love your long form videos. MORE PLEASE!

Love your stories

any way you can turn on the option to play all on your videos? love to binge great channels like yours while i work from home.

This video was interesting as always and I must say Dietmar Doering is 100% a better man than me- I would have held a grudge for years to come.

Im a Bosniak and many of my relatives have escaped the country during the war so they could find a better life and home. And they did this in various ways for instance my uncle in order to escape the Serbian forces disguised himself as a soldire took his wife and then he nicely came up to another soldire and said he was taking her as a prisoner, and they actualy belived him. So he and his wife escaped to the nearest airport and made their way to Germany. And there are many other stories like this that my relatives told so hearing a story about refuges disguising themselfs as a handball team to escape the troubles of their situation really hit close to home

Most underrated show on RU-vid 😭

I'm of Indian background and my family moved to the UK. While this is a very interesting story, I have a different perspective on it. While I do sympathise with anyone who desperately wants to leave their home countries to find work in the Western world - they also need to have a reality check. A lot of people arrive in the country with some very false expectations. It's not easy to get even low paying work, hours are long and pay is poor. A lot of immigrants are unskilled, but still want a great paying job - which I think is bizarre. There, of course, needs to be more done to help these people - but taking advantage of someone's good will and generosity- as these guys did - is not the way. I feel sorry for both sides, but especially for Dieter.

i woke up at 5:00 in the morning just to watch the new hideen stories vid thx for a banger andy

Great story Andy! You put out great content and I’m subscribed. Been watching your shorts for awhile but didn’t know about this channel until now.

I love how the most replayed spot in the video is the end of the ad read XD

Correction 3:27 That photo is not the real photos. That's a screenshot from the movie that was made about this story. But great presentation!

First off I am aware of the plight of the Handball players. The part that is being overlooked is the terrible effect it had on the innocence of Dietmar Doering and AGSEP. It is pathetic that none of the Sri Lankans have reached out to Dietmar to express their gratitude and apologies for the harm they created. The fact that many returned to Sri Lanka is horrible for all concerned. Sri Lanka should be banned from all international competition as they have been doing this for DECADES!! Almost every trip results in decamping. This happens several times a year.

Thank you, Andy!❤

You do the shorts baiting videos very well. Calling them "trailers" is genius. Waaaay smarter than those "follow for part 2" or showing an incomplete story to make me search out a 90 minute podcast type of videos. And the stories are good, like a TV14 version of MrBallen(his videos creep me tf out sometimes). Basically I'm just a happy subscriber

I’m happy that the link wasn’t a Rick roll

The first pic you have of the team which states “real photo of the team” is actually all Sri Lankan actors from the movie! Otherwise great overview!

I’m officially hooked to ur channel. ❤

I wait for a new episode of hidden stories everytime

Nice video! You should do a video about the story of Wim hof next, would appreciate it.

Watching it rn! Keep it up!

Hope situation in Sri Lanka will be better very soon.

Haven’t even watched it yet but IM SURE it’s gonna be A BANGER

You're a GREAT storyteller!

Wow, your videos are amazingly well made, I thought that would be, kinda meh but they're great

My fav day of the week

how have I not heard of this story ?? i have been living here for 20 years and never heard of this!!

Pictures of the Sri Lankan handball team in this video are from the movie "Machang" 😂and arent actual ones

Yesss ive been waiting all weekk!! We love you

i love listening to these stories keep it up

He should be able to re-setup his league again and try to keep going with other countries

Hi Andy I'm A Big Fan Since 2022 Love Your Vids Keep It Up Love From The City Of Antipolo,Philippines

Thank you for this true story although I don't watch sports ,I've always enjoyed sports movies this is one story that should be made in to a movie following the( non players )to their dreams of a better life.

There are so many unexpected plot twists here…

You are the best RU-vidr. Your not like ray williams who criticizes everything. Keep going bro!

Handball is cutthroat. It's honestly sweet to see that they toned it down to give them a fair chance

This is a great video

For correction. These ara not real footages of sri lankan team. These are acters in a movie called machang. That movie is based on this story

OUTSTANDING I love this thank you Andy

This story is heartbreaking.