A move, new main-sponsor and the wait for the EHF decision

Pre-season presentation of the VfL Gummersbach
 – Four new players and a difficult CL group

Vfl move to the Kölnarena

Four new players, a budget of 4.5 million euro and a complete move to the Kölnarena – VfL Gummersbach embarks on a new future after leaving their old Eugen-Haas-Halle in Gummersbach. Last season the club played the "big" matches in the Bundesliga and the Champions League in Europe’s biggest sports arena and now all matches will be played at the venue where the WCh final took place. The club calculates with an average number of 7500 spectators at each match. For the "highlight matches" in the league against Kiel, Flensburg, Lemgo, Hamburg and Magdeburg the Kölnarena will reach its capacity of 19.500, at all other matches – also in the Champions League – the arena will have a capacity of 9500. "We had a great season last year and I hope we can continue this and have an interesting season", said Coach Alfred Gislasson, who hopes that the club of Reykjavik will pass the qualification round and be the Vfl opponent in the first CL group phase.

The toughest Champions League Group and the "new" team

"We will play in the hardest group, but we hope that it will be possible to reach the second group phase", says Gislasson, whose team plays against the European top clubs Celje and Vezsprem in Group F. But also in the Bundesliga, Germans  former record-winner wants to play an important role. "As most of our injured players should be able to play at the start of the season I think we have a good team", says captain Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson, like Gislasson, he is also from Iceland. Sigurdsson has four new team mates – including two new playmakers: As the EHF will make a decision in the "Narcisse-case" by 24th August, the club planned in two directions. (The EHF will have to decide, either if the French player Daniel Narcisse has a legal contract with Vfl or with the French club Chambery).

Alternatives for Narcisse

In the case that Narcisse will leave Germany, VfL has two new options for his position: The Russian Oleg Kuleschow, who played some years for SC Magdeburg and became CL champion, and the French international Geoffroy Krantz, who previously played in Montpellier. "Oleg is very experienced and Geoffroy is one of the biggest talents in the playmaker position", says Francois-Xavier Houlet, the new sports director and former playmaker of the club.  For the back-court another experienced player signed for Gummersbach: The Slowenian left-hander Roman Pungartnik who has played in Kiel and Hamburg before – and he was the best scorer at the "Schlecker-Cup" last weekend.

Two more weeks of preparation

For the defence the Norwegian Kenneth Klev (former club: Altea/Spain) has come to the club on the River Rhine. Besides them the Vfl signed a young quartet including the third goalkeeper Stanislaw Gorobtschuk – as the former national keeper "Eros" Ramota did not renew his contract. And since the number one Goran Stojanovic is injured, Gorobtschuk might get an early chance in the league.  "We still have two weeks of preparation", said Houlet, "and I believe that we have a strong team for the league and the Champions League." But Houlet did not mention a concrete objective for the season: "We want to reach the CL again, all the other things we have to see, as the Bundesliga this season is better than ever and a lot of team can reach the top ranks. And in the Champions League three good team have to fight for two places to continue."With the support of a new main-sponsor (Krombacher brewery) the budget is about 4.5 million euro again. So in the CL, the spectators will see two top matches between the breweries, when Gummersbach plays against Celje.