17.02.2009, 03:26
Successful start for Voina

National coach Voina takes Valcea over, but he knows that the first victory was not his success.

Successful start for Voina

After taking Romanian national team over last year, Radu Voina will coach Oltchim Valcea as well.

Radu Voina won Olympic Silver medal (Montreal 1976) and two Olympic Bronze medals (Munich 1972 and Moscow 1980) as handball player. He was also World Champion in 1974.

Recently Voina was appointed coach of the Romanian women's national team. He took fifth place at the EURO 2008 with the team.

The Romanian handball legend took over Oltchim last week after the Croatian Ivica Rimanić resigned. At this moment Oltchim is on the top of domestic championship table and still fighting for the CL semi-finals.

In his very first official match as the coach, Valcea defeated Krim at home. Voina knows that expectations are high. He said:

“I only had one training with the team so I'm not the one who should take credits for this victory. Anyway, I hope I will help Oltchim to reach the semi-finals.“

Official statement of Oltchim Valcea 

The club also published a comment on the case:

“At the last meeting between the club leadership and Ivica Rimanić, which took place on 12 February, we discussed the methods and strategies for improving results of our team in the Champions League and domestic league because both sides were not satisfied with the results of previous matches.

"Mr. Rimanić suggested changes that the club could not agree with. Therefore, Mr. Rimanić decided to resign from his position.

"We are very pleased that Mr. Radu Voina, national team coach of Romania, understood our situation and accepted our offer to replace Mr. Rimanić. We were lucky to find so quickly an experienced coach such as Rimanić was. We regret that we had to terminate our cooperation with Mr. Rimanić and we wish to him many successes in his future career.”

TEXT: Ivan Ambros