Goluža buoyed by Zagreb’s fighting spirit

HC Croatia Osiguranje Zagreb entered the new season with a revamped side missing a bulk of experienced stalwarts who left the club and their replacements showed all the traits of a youthful side prone to inconsistency in the opening three rounds of the VELUX EHF Champions League.

Following the opening home win over Pick Szeged and a somewhat surprising draw at Dinamo Minsk, Zagreb slipped to a 28:27 defeat at Kadetten Schaffhausen last Thursday which left their coach Slavko Goluža fuming over the mistakes they made but pleased with the effort.

“We didn’t play well and have only ourselves to blame for this defeat because we made a lot of mistakes, especially in attack,” Goluža told Croatian media after seeing his team concede the match-winning goal with only five seconds left on the clock.

“The encouraging thing though is that the team didn’t roll over and give up even when we trailed by six or seven goals, these young players showed character and hauled themselves back into the match,” he said.

Goluža, who steered Croatia to the bronze medal in January’s EHF EURO 2012 in Serbia, especially singled out his team’s top scorer Marino Marić, who netted nine goals. “He had an outstanding game but that came as no surprise to us because we all knew who much potential he has. What he lacks is consistency but that will come in due course because he is a young player who needs time to develop,” Goluza stressed.

Slovenian middle back David Špiler was less impressed than his coach with Zagreb’s performance and poured scorn on himself and his team mates. “We had a disastrous first half and overall it was our worst performance this season,” he said. “We improved in the second half but there were still too many ups and downs, hence the home team deserved their win because they wanted it more after two defeats in the opening two matches.”

Špiler was nonetheless confident Zagreb could still advance into the last 16 from a tough group, including former European club champions Barcelona and last season’s semi-finalists Füchse Berlin.

“We have enough quality to achieve our objective of getting through the Group Phase but better things will come in two or three years, when this young team matures. Who knows, maybe we can emulate last season’s accomplishment of reaching the quarter-finals, if we produce our best form when we need to most,” Špiler pointed out.