Grubisic takes over Lunde’s place

Due to the pregnancy of Katrine Lunde the EHF Champions League title holders Győri ETO were forced to buy a goalkeeper, on Tuesday Jelena Grubisic signed her 1+1 year contract with the Hungarian team.

Although the board of Győri Audi ETO KC shared the joy of Katrine Lunde for her pregnancy the defending champions faced the issue of filling the void left by the irreplacable goalkeeper short from the beginning of the 2014/15 season.

A fast decision

President of Győri ETO Ernő Kelecsényi was both happy and worried when he first heared the news about Lunde.

"We are constantly put under pressure by our fans, sponsors and the media to win titles but we also hold responsibility for our new players, whom we promised a strong contender for the Champions League for the upcoming season. We simply can not let them down," Kelecsényi told ehfcl.com.

Győr made a quick decision to go for Jelena Grubisic, who was one of the few available goalkeepers of required quality. "Jelena is a top drawer goalie, I believe we signed a player who is capable of guiding our defence just about as well as Katrine did," said the president.

A moral issue

Kelecsényi claims it would be moraly unacceptable for the Győr board to try to lure away any of the rivals’ goalkeepers. "We now know how it feels when things like this happen out of the blue. So short from the start of the season we needed to find a key player but we decided not to turn to any of our rivals’ players. Luckily Grubisic was ready to join us and we are happy to have signed her.”

The player said she had mixed feelings as she was sad to leave Ljubljana but also happy to have the chance to play for the defending champions. "I know replacing Katrine Lunde is a very difficult task but I can promise I will do my best to do the job. It is a great opportunity for me and I feel honoured to be part of such a world class squad," said Grubisic.