Viborg Coach Satisfied with Second Place  

Tomas Ryde, coach of Danish Women’s Champions League team, Viborg HK, was quite satisfied. Despite not winning the Stelioplast Cup in the German town of Wittlich – after winning it in 2005 and in 2006 as well – the Swedish coach was positive about the performance of his girls.

“I think it was a fine part of our preparations for the new season”, the Swede told Eurohandball.com.

Viborg, which many people name among the favourites to win the Champions League in the coming season, ended the tournament with a surprising 32-24 defeat against German team HC Leipzig in the final.

Before that, Viborg defeated another German team, Bayer Leverkusen by 26-17, and Danish Randers HK by 27-17.

In the semi-final on Sunday, Viborg have beaten the Norwegian champions, Larvik HK, by 30-29 after penalty shoot-out (26-26 after ordinary time). After these successful matches, Viborg suffered a surprisingly big defeat against Leipzig as the German team took revenge for the two losses in the group stage of last season’s Champions League.

 After an equal first half, which ended 13-11 for Leipzig, the former German champions increased their lead to 23-16 within the first 12 minutes of the second half, and that decided the match.

Bothered by injuries 

Nevertheless, Viborg coach Tomas Ryde was quite contented with his team’s performance at this early stage of their preparations for the coming season.

“I think it was a fine preparation tournament for us, and it does not much matter that we did not win the tournament for the third year in succession. We were simply missing too many of our regular players, and those who were fit, simply got too tired at the end. For instance, Bojana Popovic played three whole matches, while Lene Thomsen had to play three matches as well. Therefore, there was simply too little strength at the end of the tournament,” Tomas Ryde told Eurohandball.com.

“Rikke Skov had to stay at home due to private matters, while Christian Varzaru, Kristine Lunde and substitute playmaker Jane Schumacher were sidelined with injuries. With this background, I think that the remaining players did very well. Bojana Popovic did extremely well in the backcourt line, while both our goalkeepers, Louise Bager Due and Katrine Lunde Haraldsen, also did very well. All in all, I think we got a lot out of this weekend,” Toma Ryde added.