Slovenia with only 13 players
The last two games of the EHF EURO qualifications for Slovenia's national team will only be for prestige. Only one win in four qualification games prevented them from going to the prestigious tournament in the Netherlands. Coach Tone Tiselj has a lot of concerns.
Although the names of 28 players were forwarded to the European Handball Federation for the last rounds of the qualification, coach Tiselj only managed to start preparations with 13 of them.
"We have a lot of problems. Many players are missing because of study or work, and some are injured," explains Tiselj, who took over the Slovenian national team last June from Ivica Rimanić.
Maja Šon, Maja Zrnec, Manuela Hrnjič have long-term problems with injuries, while Miša Marinček, Barbara Varlec and Laura Gerič had to cancel their arrival minutes before midnight. "We will have to find a new concept for the future. Slovenia doesn’t have a lot of players and injuries cause a big disadvantage."
Since Sunday they’ve been preparing in Velenje where the girls will play against top favourite Sweden on Thursday evening. Games against the Scandinavians and Austria on Saturday are only for prestige. The young national team doesn’t have any more chances to qualify for the EHF EURO 2012. "They will be the most difficult games because of injuries and for the reasons mentioned earlier. But the girls who are training here are highly motivated," added the coach.
In their four matches so far in qualification group 5, Slovenia lost against Sweden once, twice against the Czech Republic, but managed to beat Austria.
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.
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TEXT: Maja Mastnak
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