Stojkovic: “Brest Will Continue to Grow”

A silent water that runs deep, Serbian line player Rastko Stojkovic has been one of this season’s pillars at Belarus champions HC Meshkov Brest and to their bid of reaching the VELUX EHF Champions League Last 16.

Standing at 1.91 metres, the robust line player has added a new dimension to Brest and demonstrated his qualities in no uncertain terms in this season’s games against Europe’s elite, impressing with seven goals against Paris Saint-Germain Handball on home court.

In an exclusive interview with ehfCL.com, Stojkovic spoke about his life in Brest and the club’s ambitions this season.

“I am really enjoying myself in Brest,” he said. I have settled in very quickly, we have a very good team and the coach has done a great job putting all the pieces together.”

Plenty of room for improvement

Brest have so far won one of their four Group A games but twice came agonisingly close to upsetting the elite of Europe’s club handball, having lost by one goal to both PSG and THW Kiel. Stojkovic looked back on those two encounters with a sense of pride and resentment of luck turning its back on his team.

“We hope that we will be a bit more fortunate in the upcoming games,” he said with a wry smile on his face.

“Handball success is very young in Brest and there is still plenty of room for improvement. We are hoping that we will soon have a full house in every Champions League game, although the support we are getting from our fans has been nothing short of fantastic.”

“As a team, we have made tremendous progress since last season,” said Stojkovic, who has a vast Champions League experience with Vive Targi Kielce as he spent four successive seasons in Europe’s premier club competition with the Polish giants.

Crunch time beckons

In order to advance into the knockout stage of the competition, Brest will in all likelihood have to win their remaining home games and look for an odd away victory too in order to finish ahead of at least two teams in their section.

“Crunch time beckons for us in the Champions League. We never thought we’d have a chance to take something from Kiel and PSG, and having come so close in both games we now realise that we have the potential to reach the knockout stage of the competition,” Stojkovic emphasised.  

“There is nothing between ourselves, Zagreb and La Rioja and with a bit of luck we can finish in the group’s top four.”