Löwen: always higher

Rhein Neckar Löwen closed a successful season: third place in the Bundesliga, semi-final in the Champions League. But for the new coach Ola Lindgren this is not enough.

“We have a higher potential now, so we want to take the next step on our ladder of success,” Lindgren said at the start of their preparation camp in Denmark, where they met Kopenhagen, Kolding and Glostrup in friendly matches.

Löwen signed some top players such as Olafur Stefansson from Ciudad Real, Carlos Prieto, German international Michael Müller, the Norwegian Bjarte Myrhol and the Greek Alex Alvanos.

Christian Schwarzer (ended his career), Sergey Shelmenko (Chechovski Medvedi) and Mariusz Jurasik (Kielce/Poland) left the club.

“It’ll be a tough process of to fit the new players in,” Lindgren said. “In October the latest we’ll have a very strong team. Before that, we will have to show our fighting spirit to win the matches. Afterwards we want to play attractive handball in the national and international competitions.”

The new Löwen team captain will be the Icelandic international Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson. And he’s very ambitious, too:

“We have world class players in our team and real personalities. We have players, who are willing to win every match – and our defenve will improve a lot,” Sigurdsson said.

Löwen are still looking for another left wing player, as the young Patrick Groetzki is currently the only player there. Groetzki couldn’t play much in the first phase of the preparation as he will take part in the Junior World Championship with Germany.

Former Löwen coach Wolfgang Schwenke changed sports in the meantime: the former German national player and coach was appointed managing director of Holstein Kiel, a football club just promoted to the third division.