Kovacsics: Indiscipline cost us dearly but everything is open

Ferencváros suffered a five-goal defeat in the Women's EHF Champions League quarter-final against title holders CSM Bucuresti but Anikó Kovacsics confirms there is not one FTC player, who does not believe they can turn the tide at home.

The ex-Györ playmaker hopes FTC can take on the defending champions at full strength and even if she could, she would not take anybody out of the rival’s roster for the second leg.

Despite her young age Anikó Kovacsics is a real Champions League veteran. The Hungarian playmaker was not even 18 when she took the court in her first Champions League final. Due to the heavy competition she was deployed as a winger in Györ so she decided to join her foster club’s domestic rival Ferencváros, where she immediately became a clutch player.

"The girls made me feel at home from the first day, which obviously made it easier to settle and find my place in FTC’s system. I found a great collective here and I am happy to be an important part of this very strong team," Kovacsics told ehfcl.com.

Silly mistakes

FTC suffered a five-goal defeat (30:25) in Bucarest in the Champions League quarter-final but the margin only grew to more than 2-3 goals in the last minutes. "It was very annoying because for 55 minutes we did what we planned, we kept CSM close but as fatigue kicked in we made some silly mistakes."

"We were impatient, which we should not have been and physical fatigue resulted in loss of concentration. Bucurest are one of the best teams in the competition, it’s no wonder they made good use of our indiscipline.

"If only we had a few more players who could provide us with some minutes to rest the outcome of the game would have been different. The last minutes were particularly painful in retrospect. We ran when we should have slowed down the tempo."

Ferencváros were sorely missing some key players like skipper Zita Szucsánszki and Dóra Hornyák, who are doubtful for the second leg but there is a chance they can take the court in Budapest.

Not counting goals

According to some reports Kovacsics scored 11 goals, others claim 10. Who better to put an end to the debate then the player herself?

"I honestly don’t know" – laughed the playmaker. "Don’t get me wrong I enjoy scoring but I don’t care how many goals I score if we lose.

"It wasn’t our best game I must admit. There is definitely room for improvement and although we aproached the game with the right attitude, we have to play better to reach the TIPPMIX EHF FINAL4. We will have to defend better and obviously all of us have to give our all because our opponent is a top drawer team."

Never lose hope

"There is not one player who doesn’t believe we can turn the tie around. We are prepared to fight and this time the fans will support us and I believe this can make a difference. We have great fans, who will not let us rest or lose hope for a second," claimed Kovacsics.

"We know how strong Bucuresti are but the difficulty of the task at hand doesn’t scare us. Hopefully our sidelined players will recover and with the full squad at Gábor Elek’s disposal and the backing of our Ioyal fans I say we can beat any opponent."

We asked the young playmaker if she could take out one player from CSM, who would it be: "We are talking about the title holders here, there is no way to tell who will come up with a world class performance from their very strong squad. I would not take anybody out, I say let’s go out, play a good match and see how it ends."