13.08.2009, 11:00
Handball festival in Doboj

Teams preparing for the CL Qualification play tournament in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Handball festival in Doboj

This will be the 41st occasion in the Bosnian city of Doboj that the locals organise the traditional handball international preparation tournament. The eight participating teams are divided into two groups. Nordhorn (Germany), Vardar (FYROM), Wacher Thun (SWI), Sloga Doboj (Bosnia) are Group A; Bosna (Bosnian champion), Creteil (France), Buducnost (Montenegrin champion) and PAOK (Greek champion) are Group B.

This tournament is a very good test for the teams, specially for Vardar, Buducnost and PAOK who will play Champions League Qualification in September.

Day 1

The action started on Monday with three games and the opening ceremony in front of 3,000 spectators. The home team Sloga Doboj lost 34-25 to Vardar. Creteil defeated PAOK 26-20 and in the third game Wacher Thun have beaten Nordhorn by 29-28 .

Debut for the Greek champion

PAOK take part in this tournament for the first time. They want to show a good perfomance. The biggest target, however, is to qualify for the first time for the Champions League group stage. They will have a good chance for this. Thessaloniki will host a qualification group on 4-6 September. The opponents will be Ukrainian Zaporozhye and the Cypriot Strovolos.

The team of PAOK will face the new season with a much stronger side. They signed Milan Grubanov, who played in Denmark and Spain (31-y old Serbian, 1,95 tall), two Greek national players Nikos Riganas (25y, 1,97 tall, right back) and Ilias Sevastidis (23 y, 1, 92 tall, right back/winger) and the great Czech goalkeeper Jan Kominek (1, 97 tall).

TEXT: Konstantinos Chatzidimitriou from Doboj