A tournament for the history books

Lajos Mocsai, coach of MKB Veszprém, took charge of the CWC winner squad a year ago. Back then he only promised to lay down the foundations of a competitive young team. As his players won a European cup title already at the end of the first season, Mocsai can prepare the squad for the tournament in Veszprém.

Eurohandball.com: What does it mean for your club to organise the 2008 Champions Trophy?

Lajos Mocsai: It is an honour. A handball event of such a great prestige rarely comes to Hungary – maybe once in every 15 years. It is an important tournament for European handball and now we will have the opportunity to host the best teams of the European cups. This tournament, and a possible good result, will remain in the history book of the club forever.

Veszprém has just inaugurated the new sports arena, which was a great investment and a very important step for the entire region. The Champions Trophy will fill the new arena for two days.

Eurohandball.com: The old and smaller hall had a unique atmosphere. What shall we expect from the new one?

Lajos Mocsai: We don’t know it yet, but we are looking forward to find it out. The sports hall of Celje is similar to this one and we have seen there handball games played in a fantastic atmosphere. I think this will be guaranteed here as well.And also, we can feel over this weekend what it means to enjoy the support of a full house in the new Veszprém Aréna.

Eurohandball.com: And what about your team? There has been little change since last season…

Lajos Mocsai: The team remained basically the same and this is the best news. We have signed three players. The Slovenian left wing, Korazija, is an intelligent young player who thinks about the team first and solves the tasks he is assigned. The Croatian goalkeeper, Pesic, is the player of the future. He is only 19 and we hope that he will fit in soon.Finally, Bagaric is a talented left back also from Croatia. He has great physical abilities; we have to adjust him in the team tactically.

Eurohandball.com: The other teams are in competition form already. What about Veszprém?

Lajos Mocsai: The opponents are one step ahead because they already played high level matches on high speed this season. We tried to compensate it with consciously preparing for Nordhorn that we will meet in the semi-final.

They play typical Scandinavian handball based on good goalkeeping. They have one of the best counter attacks in the Bundesliga and they have excellent defending.

The other two are world class teams; no need to present them, you can always watch them on TV…