Strength and confidence

“I hope Kiel will win the Champions League,“ Rhein-Neckar Löwen coach, Wolfgang Schwenke, said after his team have beaten THW by 31:30 on Thursday evening.

He also explained why he wishes to be so: “…so that we can say that we were eliminated by the winner.”

It was a really important success for Schwenke:

“We gathered a lot of confidence after our Black Sunday in Kiel. We showed that we have the power and the abilities to beat this outstanding team.”

Line player Christian Schwarzer, after his last international match at the end of his 20-year long career, agreed:

“We played a great match and we showed our fans that we’re always willing to fight. This game was a highlight for us.”

The match winner Uwe Gensheimer, who scored the decisive goal right as the final whistle came, was completely satisfied:

“We showed that we can beat Kiel and this gives us strength for our next matches against them.”

Next weekend Löwen will meet Kiel again in the semi-final of the German Cup in Hamburg. One week later they’ll play again in the Bundesliga.

“If we want to reach the German Cup Final we have to improve even more,” Löwen coach Schwenke added.

The Kiel side was not disappointed after their third defeat in their 48th official match of this season. This was their second loss after the defeat in Ciudad Real.

“We could have won the match but some players switched off too early,” THW coach Alfred Gislasson said. “We’re satisfied by reaching the Final. And in the German Cup when we will meet again next week, it’s again our turn to win.”

Goalkeeper Thierry Omeyer commented:

“It wasn’t so disappointing to lose here, even as we played better than the Löwen most of the match”.

He was impressed by the atmosphere in the SAP Arena: “It’s fun and great motivation to play when there’s such an atmosphere in the hall. It was great.”

Left winger Dominik Klein doesn’t think about the CL final yet:

“At first we’ll celebrate and then we will not care who’ll be our opponent. This is my third season in Kiel and it’s incredible that we reach the third CL Final already.”

Coach Gislasson hopes that HSV Hamburg will be the opponent:

“For German handball it would be great to have two Bundelsiga teams in the Final. Most of the experts say that Hamburg do not have a chance in Ciudad Real, but in my opinion they can reach the finals. In a Champions League semi-final the advantage of playing at home isn’t so big when the best teams in the world meet. Let’s wait and see.”

For Kiel it’s the fourth Final in their CL history: in 2000 they lost to Barcelona, in 2007 they have beaten Flensburg and in 2008 they lost against Ciudad Real.