BLOG: Looking forward for the group derby

Welcome back to my blog on www.ehfcl.com!

I had a great summer. I've spent a lot of time with my family at the seaside and I've managed to get well rested. This year we had quite a lot of vacation time and luckily I've made the most of it.

Basic training was strenuous, but what else can one expect? I don't like it  for starters, and me getting older each year doesn't help either. But you have to endure that in order to be well prepared for the season!

It has started well for us, but we have still some fine tuning to do and I am sure that we will be in top shape for the toughest challenges.

Points are where they were expected to be

We were succesful also in our VELUX EHF Champions League debut and we've established ourselves as group favorites. And let's be honest, at least on paper it is expected of us to win this group.

After the first round in Group D I think that the points are in general pretty much where they were expected to be. Szeged had some problems at home with Motor, who gave an excellent performance, especially my old teammate Richie [Stochl].

Perhaps Aalborg was a bit too convincing in winning at Dunkerque as predicted, but looking at Dunkerque's overall form ... maybe not. But they have definitely positioned themselves as serious contenders.

We are looking forward to play our first European match in front of our fans against Szeged. For sure, this is the group derby, a match of two teams who are gunning for the top spot. We are favourites, I cannot deny that, but we have to prove our worth on the court.

Don't count chickens before they hatch

Nowadays, everybody know their handball. Just look at Zagreb against Kiel, or La Rioja. So one mustn't count one's chickens before they hatch.

The overall atmosphere in the team is excellent. We have two new players, Reichmann from Germany and Sego, a Croatian - another one of "us" - and we now converse even more in the "Sloveno-Croatian" language.

But we've now been together for quite some time. This bunch, we've clicked and I think that we've also reached a point where we agree on what it's all about in a team, in a team sport.

Our primary goal is to win the group, which would make our trajectory to the FINAL4, which is our second destination, a bit easier. As far as the favourites go - I will not bother in pointing out the strengts of Kiel, Barca or Veszprem. Kolding look like a strong opponent, Löwen as well. I believe that we are among them. Some may say that we are favourites as well, some will see us as dark horses - it doesn't really matter, we wil make our destiny on the court.

I feel that there are six, seven clubs that can realistically expect a Top 4 finish. So the quarter-finals will be packed with excitement for sure.

An then the final tournament! It's all about the form on the day and as we've seen in the past, really anything can happen!