24.08.2012, 04:43
SG Flensburg-Handewitt back in VELUX EHF Champions League

Reigning Cup Winners' Cup champions looking forward to return to Europe's premier club competition

SG Flensburg-Handewitt back in VELUX EHF Champions League

Fresh from their victory in last season's Cup Winners' Cup, SG Flensburg-Handewitt are looking forward to a new challenge and a return to competing at the very top of European club handball, the VELUX EHF Champions League.

Club manager, Dierk Schmäschke, looks back with pride on last season. "It was a great season with the win of the Cup Winners' Cup, the second place in the German league and the final of the Lufthansa Final Four in Hamburg," he said.

Flensburg hope to go far this season, though the VELUX EHF Champions League draw was perhaps not too kind to the team from the North of Germany. They will meet Chekhovskie Medvedi, Ademar Leon, Montpellier HB, the winner of the Wildcard Tournament and the winners of one of the qualifying tournaments.

"This is a tough group," said Tobias Karlsson, "but we know that the Champions League isn´t just a walk in the park."

Team coach, Ljubomir Vranjes, also expects a difficult time ahead especially with a squad that he feels is too small for the strains of Europe's top club competition, especially now that Petar Djordjic will miss most of the season due to a cruciate ligament rupture.

"Every team has its qualities, a slight favourite is Montpellier. The home games are important, we have to win them. We want to reach the Last 16," he said.

Flenburg does not the have the financial clout of some of the other big players in European handball. "We lie in a peripheral location, industry doesn´t look to Flensburg," said the advisory board chairman Boy Meesenburg, "We are restructuring but can´t afford a power struggle with Kiel or Paris."

But Captain Tobias Karlsson is confident of a good performance from his team in the coming season. He said: "We are well prepared and we want to win every game," he said. "If we come together like last season and say that we gave everything we could, we can be satisfied."

TEXT: Jan Kirschner