"Olympic Games would be a dream come true"
Coach Henk Groener has led the Dutch National Team since 2009 and since then his side has been part of all possible continental and world events.
Besides hosting the upcoming EHF EURO 2012, The Netherlands have chances to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games. In this exclusive interview Groener talks about those possible qualification chances and explains what an Olympic Games appearance would mean for the Dutch ahead of the continental event in his native country.
ehf-euro.com: Thanks to the Angolan victory at the recent African Championship in Morocco, The Netherlands snatched a place in the Olympic Qualification tournaments. Were you expecting that luck would be on your side?
Henk Groener: Angola have won the previous seven African Championships, so we had high hopes that they would celebrate victory again. Having watched their performance at the recent World Championship in Brazil I considered them to be stronger than their nearest rival Tunisia.
But still, a final has to be played first. It was very exciting, and we were very happy that, at the end, Angola had won the African Championship and that gave us a place at the Olympic qualification tournaments.
ehf-euro.com: You will play in Spain against the hosts, Croatia and Argentina, and only two teams will advance to London. What chance do you have, and how realistic is the goal of an Olympic Games spot?
Henk Groener: For us qualifying for the Olympics would be a dream come true. Because of the strong opponents and our young team, it would be a sensation if we were to succeed. We will be there, well prepared to take up the challenge to keep two teams behind us in the ranking.
Although Spain, as bronze medalist of the World Championship and hosts of this tournament, and Croatia, as another big name in handball, will be the favourites to qualify at the bookmakers, we want to give them a big fight and will be ready for victory if the opportunity knocks.
ehf-euro.com: What would an Olympic Games place mean for the team in preparation for the upcoming big event in your country?
Henk Groener: If we were to qualify, it would mean another big boost for women's handball in The Netherlands. It would be the best promotion for the next big event, the EHF EURO 2012 at home.
However, preparation time is limited, so we’ll give it all we have because everyone involved knows of the huge impact of a premiere participation for Dutch handball at the Olympics!
ehf-euro.com: Your team was unable to repeat the classy EHF EURO 2010 performance at the World Championship in Brazil. What are your thoughts on the team´s performance of last December?
Henk Groener: When I took over as head coach in 2009, nobody in The Netherlands believed that we would qualify for any of the tournaments lying ahead. At that time, some of the experienced players had ended their international career because of lack of perspective.
After we failed to qualify for the 2009 World Championship in China in the play-off against the Ukraine I changed the squad and went for as many young players as possible. This gave us a boost and with them came the continuous steps towards qualifying.
After we have qualified for the EHF EURO 2010 and performed well there, we played two convincing matches against Turkey to qualify for the World Championship. With the rising performance levels, the expectations also became higher. Within the team, the expectation levels were also high, and the World Championship became an uphill race.
In Brazil it was clear that every opponent took us and our team very seriously, and although we were capable of playing good handball, we were not able to keep this performance at the required level for 60 minutes.
In the matches against the stronger opponents we failed to maintain the fight when the match seemed to go the wrong way for us. We lost with a too big difference against very strong opponents. We played six matches at the World Championship and have played against the gold and bronze medalist, the former World Champions (Russia) and the Asian champions (South Korea).
It was not a disgrace to be defeated by these world class teams, but I think we could have kept the gap smaller than it was at the end. So, far from being satisfied, we are eager to show that we can do better in May.
In the next part of the article, the trainer will give readers an insight into the country´s ‘HandbalAcademie’ program and will talk about his goals for the EHF EURO 2012 in The Netherlands.
Further Information
 Find more information on the Women's EHF EURO 2012 Qualification HERE.
View more detailed information on the event on the Official EHF EURO 2012 Website.
www.ehf-euro.com/NED2012/
Join the growing community of fans of the event on Facebook!
www.facebook.com/NED2012
TEXT: Márk Hegedüs
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