Second Croatian victory

More then 8,000 Croatian fans cheered for Zagreb in the Arena at a game which was a test before the decisive home matches against Ciudad Real and Hamburg.

Tonči Valčić scored the first goal of the match after an excellent pass from Ivano Balić who afterwards stole the ball and scored from a fast break to make it 2:0. In the 9th minute Frank Løke scored his second goal to take a three-goal lead at 5:2. When Džomba increased the margin to 9:5, it was time for the Alingsas coach to call a time out. Nevertheless, the Croatian team continued to increase the margin and the first half ended 17:9.

Comeback of Štrlek

In second half Zagreb started even more convincingly. After a double “zeppelin” with Štrlek, Lazarov scored the most beautiful goal of the match at 20:10. The excellent Štrlek (who recovered after a knee injury) soon scored to reach the biggest gap of the match at 24:11.

In the last 15 minutes both coaches decided to give the chance to all their players. The Swedish team took advantage of it and decreased the margin to 30:21 – which was also the final result of the match.

Škof was again great with 17 saves; Lazarov scored 8 goals and Løke 6 for Zagreb.

The best Alingsas scorer was Bliznac with 5 goals; Kappelin also did well with 13 saves.

This time Maglajila was satisfied, not only with the game and the score, but also with the fact that in second half he could send all his players on court:

“We did well today especially in our 3-2-1 defence. Maybe we didn't play our best game, but we are improving for sure.”

“Zagreb are very strong team. We took a bad start and it was decisive. The Croatian team have many top players and an excellent goalkeeper,“ said Robert Wedberg, coach of Alingsas.