A legendary team going for the 9th title

Hypo Niederösterreich reached the final of a Europaean Cup for the 13th time in their history. This should be the lucky number for the team of Gunnar Prokop. The president’s club won the Champions League (earlier called Champions cup) eight times so far. And exactly eight years after their last title they want to bring their “project nine” to a successful end in the CL finals against the Russian champions, Zvezda Zvenigorod. Eurohandball.com looks into the history of Hypo.

Back in the 1970’s, Gunnar Prokop had the idea to bring handball to Vienna. He started his legendary project with track and field athletes. And Prokop brought to life the most successful women’s club in Europe.

In 1977 Hypo won their first Austrian title. From that year no other team won a title as Hypo celebrated already 32 Austrian championships in a row, the last one against the second team of Hypo...

Since 1989, when the Austrian Cup competition was introduced, Hypo also won every Austrian Cup final.

In the European cup competitions Hypo had their first experience in 1976. This year they were eliminated very early. It took another 13 years to take the continental throne for the first time by beating the “unbeatable” Spartak Kiev in the finals of the Champions Cup in 1989.

Before the Champions League took the place of this competition, Hypo won on three more occasions – once against Krasnodar (Russia), Lützellinden (Germany) and once against Vasas Budapest (Hungary). This match was the last ever final of the Champions Cup.

And when the new era started with the EHF Champions League in 1993/1994, it was the same final a year ago with Hypo beating Vasas Budapest.

And the “international all star team” with top players from all over the world (mostly from Eastern Europe) succeeded next season by winning the final against Koprivnica. One year later the first big defeat came for Hypo. This time the Croatian Koprivnica took the title.

It took three more years for Hypo to claim final victory again. In 1998 they won their seventh gold medal.

The eight title (fourth in the CL) against Kometal Skopje ended in scenes of chaos.

Hypo were expected to continue their winning series, but the victory in 2000 with world class players such as Ausra Fridrikas (seven time winner with Hypo and Slagelse), Tanja Dshandsgava, Rima Sypkus or Svetlana Mozgovaia was the last international title for Hypo up to now.

Prokop changed players and coaches nearly every year. Every season started with the same objective to win the Champions League. But in four consecutive seasons Hypo didn’t even “survive” the group matches. The only little success was a Cup Winners’ Cup final in 2004 that Ikast from Denmark won at the end.

But in the last few years Hypo has seen gradual improvement once again in the Champions League: in 2006 they were eliminated in the quarterfinals, while in 2005 and 2007 they reached the semi-finals.

Last season was bitter disappointment for Prokop & Co. as they missed the final by only one goal against Lada Togliatti (Russia). But now they want to return to the podium: with a “multicultural” team with players from six countries and coach András Németh, who came to Vienna before this season, Hypo wants to bring “project nine” to success.