Lovćen satisfied with draw for VELUX EHF Champions League Qualification Tournament

After ten years of absence, Lovćen is back in the most prestigious European club competition, the VELUX EHF Champions League.

Last season, Lovćen won both, the championship title and the national Cup. It’s the first time that a Montenegrin team managed to make the double.

This season, Lovćen aims to make its way to the Group Phase of the VELUX EHF Champions League.

The Montenegrin champions will participate in a Qualification Tournament on 8/9 September against RK Sloga (BIH), RK Partizan (SRB) and FC Porto (POR).

In the semi-final, Lovćen will face Sloga and in the other semi-final Partizan will play against Porto.

Reactions to the draw

 “In general, we can be satisfied with the draw. On paper, Sloga is the easiest opponent from Pot 1 (Metalurg (MKD), Constanta (ROU), Dinamo Minsk (BLR), Sloga (BIH)).

Unfortunately we got Porto out of Pot 3. We would have preferred if we got Dinamo Poltava (UKR) or Maccabi Srugo Rishon Le Zion (ISR)”, said Pero Milošević, coach of Lovćen. The coach joined Lovćen in summer 2012 and was a part of the biggest successes of the club 10 years ago.

The coach adds: “Sloga, our opponenet in the semi-final, surprised everybody when they won the title in Bosnia Herzegovina, leaving behind Borac from Banja Luka.

Several players transferred from Bosna to Sloga in the middle of the season and reinforced the team so that they could finish the season with the title. Although this summer a few players left the club to join the famous club Partizan Belgrade.”

“Porto is very strong too and I think it will be difficult for Partizan to defeat the Portuguese in the semi-final. At this point, however, it is tricky to make a prediction since we don’t know how strong our opponents will be in September. On top of that we don’t even know how Lovćen will look like"

Club president Jovo Lagator is confident and affirms that the draw was good for Lovćen:  “Lovćen can compete with all the teams in Group 1 and make it to the Group Phase."

The management of the club however has other things to worry about. Their financial structure is a little delicate.

"We talked to some investors who promised to get involved. We hope we can improve our financial structure to provide the club a minimum budget for the next season. We have to work very quickly because our preparations start in less than three weeks.”, explained Lagator.

"Besides our young goalkeeper, Nebojša Simić, no one expressed the desire to leave the club. We just have to see if we can offer a new contract to every player. Some national players don’t have a contract right now and if they played for Lovcén that would be good for the club and for the national team. “