Vestergaard: Only half time

Jakob Vestergaard, head coach of Viborg, was obviously disappointed after the 26-24 home defeat to Hungarian Győr in the first leg of the Champions League Finals.

Soon after the match, however, he was confident that his girls can play much better – especially in attack. “This was only the first half. We will play again on Saturday and then I hope we can win. I cannot imagine playing so poorly once again,” Jakob Vestergaard told eurohandball.com

Eurohandball.com: How do you explain the poor attacking performance of the first match?

Jakob Vestergaard: We made too many technical mistakes and we made a lot of wrong decisions when we were attacking against the wall. Pálinger showed a fantastic performance. You must always expect many saves from this great goalkeeper, but we gave her the chance to save too many shots. We have to be more accurate at the return match.

Eurohandball.com: On the other hand, you can probably not improve much in defence.

Jakob Vestergaard: No, you are right. The problem was that we could not make many fast-breaks. If our many good defensive solutions could have been finished by fast-breaks, it would have been perfect. However, we did not manage at the first match partly because Győr did well to get back to defence after losing the ball. That is obviously a game element we have to improve.

Eurohandball.com: Another factor will be the over 5,000 Hungarian fans in Veszprém. Can your players cope with that mentally?

Jakob Vestergaard: We know that this is the way it goes there. They simply have a fantastic crowd and it is the same all over that part of Europe. We were able to cope with that against Valcea in Romania and I hope we can do so once again. Of course we will be under an enormous pressure.