Hungary trying to find the right mix

Hungary's women's national team is currently preparing for the Carpathian Cup that will be held from Friday, 5 October, to Sunday, 7 October, in Romania. They will face a Romanian A and a Romanian B team as well as Ukraine.

But with just two months to go the tournament is also an important step in the preparation for the EHF EURO 2012 in Serbia, as assistant coach Beáta Siti (pictured) explains to eurohandball.com.

eurohandball.com: There are some well known names missing from the list of players you selected for the Carpathian Cup. What is the reason?
Beáta Siti: This squad is the result of an arrangement between the clubs and the Hungarian national teams. We respect their demands and it was the same in September when players from Győr were preparing for Women's EHF Champions League.

Now we are giving Ferencváros players a break as they will play a very important match against Volgograd on 14 October. It is a solution that we did not apply in the national team before but head coach Karl Erik Bøhn said he is currently open to it because he sees what the clubs are fighting for.

eurohandball.com: But the whole national team will be together once the preparations for the EHF EURO 2012 start?
Beáta Siti: Our national team is based on two club teams, Győr and Ferencváros, and some additional players. The complete team will prepare together from 19 November. This is not a long period as we will only have about two weeks before the EHF EURO 2012 starts.

If all of our players are healthy, we will have a complete line of FTC players and a half line of Győr players. But maybe it will take shorter to mix players from two teams than potentially having to mix players from six teams.

eurohandball.com: What is your main task for the Carpathian Cup?
Beáta Siti: The last time we worked with the Győr players was in August, quite a while ago. What we would like to ask them is to repeat the tactics we trained with them back then. We will play against Ukraine and against a Romanian A and  B team. They are all good teams, so we can practise well against them. We can test and estimate some young players like Ivett Szepesi or Dóra Hornyák. Dóra already participated in some national team training sessions, but because of an injury she hasn't played any matches yet.

eurohandball.com: What is the current situation with Kristina Trishchuk's naturalisation?
Beáta Siti: We would really would like to see her in the Hungarian national team. The officers promised to provide the official documents by the middle of October. We wanted to test her in September when we participated at a tournament in Cheb. But it is impossible because she does not have a Hungarian passport or nationality.

It is almost sure that Szandra Zácsik cannot travel with us to Serbia in December because of her shoulder injury. That is why we really need a back player. We also can use Kristina to relieve Zsuzsanna Tomori in the third defence position. I have never asked her to ask for the Hungarian nationality, because I guess it is only her decision. I hope she can join us in November at last.

For more EHF EURO 2012 news go to www.ehf-euro.com

Also join us on www.facebook.com/EHFEUROWomen