11.04.2008, 01:11
Barcelona beat Portland – Lozano expects great atmosphere

The Catalonians are in form. Lozano and Rocas comment after beating Portland

Barcelona beat Portland – Lozano expects great atmosphere

Barcelona showed a good offensive play against Portland and showed that the game on Sunday will not be easy for THW Kiel at all. The Catalonians stay in competition for the Asobal League title after winning by 39-34 against Portland in the Palau Blau Grana.

The Cadenas team needed a good result against a strong opponent to recover confidence lost in Kiel.The offensive play of Barcelona was very high level as the 39 scored goals suggest. Barça and Portland played a very fast handball, scoring lots of goals and entertaining the fans perfectly. This kind of handball was favourable for Barcelona. Iker Romero, Nagy and Nodesbo were the best players of Cadenas. On the other side, Svensson was the best and only Balic and Ruesga were effective in attack.

The 39-34 result shows that Barcelona are ready against Kiel. Only Barrufet will be missing.

Lozano: “Fantastic atmosphere in Palau”

Demetrio Lozano played against his former teams the last two matches. He lost in Kiel, but won against Portland. The Spanish international still hopes to surprise Kiel, but he knows that the target is very difficult.

The players of Barça trust the atmosphere of Palau, the Magic of Palau Glau Grana, which was key to the six CL titles of the Catalonians.

“Palau will be in a fantastic atmosphere. We know that ten goals are a big difference, but we will try to level the score. There are always big differences in the CL when you play away. It would not be the first time for a team to win from ten goals behind in Europe. We must make an epic game, a match that we can remember after the season. If we reach the final at home, we will be happier. We played a good game against Portland and we have to repeat the good moments of this game during this match against Kiel,” said Lozano.

Albert Rocas, Spanish winger, agrees with Lozano:

“They were better in Germany, but our performance was not so bad. We know that will are in a difficult situation, but we will fight to the end. I’m sure that we will have our chances. If we can take a six or seven-goal lead, we will have a chance. We need a perfect game, running and scoring a lot of fast goals. We will need to improve our defensive performance, because we received too many goals in Kiel”.

TEXT: Fernando Urra Goñi