Kiel's Phoenix Bird

One man’s bad luck is the other man’s good luck. In the case of THW Kiel, we could put it like this: despite the lots of injuries, somebody has to play and take the responsibility. Maybe this has to be someone is just back from injury.

Kiel's backcourt player, Viktor Szilágyi, took his place in the German champion after the injuries of Karabatic, Jicha, Andersson, Zeitz and Wessig. With six important goals, Szilágyi was one of the match winners (together with Vid Katvicnik and Stefan Lövgren) in the tense semi-final of the Champions Trophy against Hamburg in Celje on Saturday. As the Austrian national player was injured for months and had to play more than expected in the last weeks, his coach Noka Serdarusic kept him on the bench in the final against Celje.

Nobody expected Szilágyi to come back in such a form: he had knee injury last season that stopped him for six months and he had further complications before starting trainings finally.

After this long pause, Szilágyi rebuilt like the Phoenix bird: he played great matches against Hamarby and Constanta in the Champions League and scored 19 goals in these two matches.

“It’s great for us to have him, and it’s great for him to play like this,” said THW manager, Uwe Schwenker, on the return from Constanta.

Earlier Kiel were considering giving Szilágyi on loan to Füchse Berlin, but he also had offers from Denmark before the season. The player stayed in Kiel, accepted the challenge to play in Germany’s best team that he joined in 2005.

Szilágyi played for TUSEM Essen and won the EHF Cup with the team, but the club was relegated to third division because of financial problems.

Essen were promoted to the first league again this year and Szilágyi played his first match against his former club last Wednesday. Kiel won and he scored three goals that game.

Szilágyi ready to talk

“It was a strange situation for me,” he said before the match. After several matches, nearly always 60 minutes on court, Szilágyi is glad that he doesn’t feel pain in his knee anymore:

“I need more practice, but I think at the moment everything is alright. The Champions League matches gave me back my self-confidence and they meant a lot of fun.”

Szilágyi wants to impress the THW management with more games like these as his contract expires at the end of the season.

“I hope to get a signal from the club whether they still want me or not,” he said in an interview. “We will have the first talks about my contract at the end of October. I have to see, if Noka Serdarusic still needs me when all other injured players will be able to play. I do my best and then we’ll see.”