No pressure on Hungary

Hungary is already qualified for the London 2012 Olympic Qualification Tournament due to its finish at last year’s World Championship in Sweden.

Despite this, coach Lajos Mocsai thinks that the European Championship will be another milestone for his side on the way to London 2012.

While winning several recent tournaments, the Hungarians showcased their best in the past few months, but will face strong teams in France, Russia and Spain in the EHF EURO preliminaries.

Coach Mocsai talks about his side’s preparation and chances for the continental tournament in Serbia.

ehf-euro.com: You’ve recently won the Christmas Cup after winning all three of your matches. Was this tournament a good practice for your team?

Lajos Mocsai: Not at all. The Polish and the Czech teams both arrived with their second squad. That’s why the Hungarian team dominated this tournament. So right now I have ambivalent feelings, as I am not happy that these two countries have broken the agreement we had previously.

Even so, the Four Nation's Cup was a really useful tournament back in November 2011. Back to the Christmas Cup: we could see which of our players can prove that they are able to fight against the international top level.

We have started the preparations again with six or seven new players after Christmas. With the final selection we will train with the guys until the beginning of the EHF EURO 2012.

ehf-euro.com: Will you have the possibility to play against stronger teams in the following weeks?

Lajos Mocsai: We will play in Slovakia, then in Szeged against an Arabian club team. We will play against the German National Team in Bremen and Magdeburg on the 7th and 8th January.

We are still waiting for some of our players from the Bundesliga and from the French league to return, among them Kornél Nagy, Tamás Mocsai, Milorad Krivokapics. I will also give a chance to Dávid Katzirz, Gábor Grebenár and Barna Putics.

ehf-euro.com: You will face France, Spain and Russia in Group C. What are your chances?

Lajos Mocsai: These are three matches that we can lose, and we may not have too many chances, but our ambitions and aims are huge. This is actually the "death group" of the EHF EURO 2012, but we also had a similarly hard group with MKB Veszprém in the VELUX EHF Men's Champions League, and yet we’ve already collected ten points.

ehf-euro.com: Do you have any target for this tournament?

Lajos Mocsai: The European championship is always highly regarded, as it’s one of the strongest tournaments. Now it’s even more exciting because it provides entry to the Olympic qualification tournament.

We can prepare calmly, because we already have our place in the Olympic qualification groups. We don’t have such big pressure on our shoulders as do Russia, Norway, or Iceland. Our main target is to play as many decisive matches as possible against the World's best teams.

Further information

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