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BERLIN - Comments from Faroe Islands head coach Peter Bredsdorff-Larsen (DEN), centre back Elias Ellefsen á Skipagøtu (FAR), line player Teis Horn Rasmussen (FAR), Norway head coach Jonas Wille (NOR) and left back Gøran Johannessen (NOR); and Poland head coach Marcin Lijewski (POL), centre back Michal Olejniczak (POL) and Slovenia assistant coach Luka Zvizej (SLO) and centre back Dean Bombac (SLO) after Slovenia beat Poland 25:32 and the Faroe Islands drew 26:26 with Norway at the Mercedes-Benz Arena on Saturday.
FAROE ISLANDS vs NORWAY
Peter Bredsdorff-Larsen (DEN) - head coach, Faroe Islands
On the game:
"It was a tough match playing against a great team. Norway is looking for other things than us. And of course it is a big surprise.
“We already played well against Slovenia. we knew we had a chance if we played on a high level. We stayed in the game and had a feeling that we could win.
“Then we lost a little bit momentum towards the end. Most impressive for us was to keep Norway at only 26 goals."
On the atmosphere in the arena:
"Coming here was already a historic moment, but this was a historic day for Faroe Islands, which we will never forget.
“Outside the court, our crowd has maybe already won a medal. Fear of missing out has reached the Islands, many people came on short notice. Our fans are just crazy."
On the next game:
"It is still far away from today. We will do our best to go to Hamburg [and the main round]. Even a third place in the group would be important for us in upcoming tournaments like the next World Championship.”
Elias Ellefsen á Skipagøtu (FAR) – centre back
On his feelings after the historic draw against Norway:
"I feel amazing, it's a dream come true to win, I mean not to win, but this is a win for us to get a point against Norway, so it's an amazing day for the Faroe Islands and our handball.
“We will try to celebrate a little bit, but we know that we have a match against Poland in two days and we still have to focus on [that]."
Teis Horn Rasmussen (FAR) – line player
On the match against Norway and securing the first-ever point in the Men's EHF EURO history:
"I think it was a bit of everything, we probably played the best national game ever. We got a point and it is amazing."
On the incredible support from the stands:
"I just want to say thank you [to the fans], it was the biggest support we have ever seen and I think, everybody is watching handball right now, it's all over the fans."
On the performance which earned them a draw:
"We played a great game, we were behind with 30 seconds left to go and we just continued to keep fighting. I think that's what you can recognise with this team. We always fight and we never give up."
Jonas Wille (NOR) - head coach
On the game:
"Faroe Islands delivered an impressive match and made it very difficult for us. We were prepared but Elias [Ellefsen á Skipagøtu] and Faroes’ goalkeeper [Nicholas Satchwell] made it very difficult for us. Especially in the second half we played good handball but did not manage to score.”
On the final minutes of the match:
“The two last minutes were quite dramatic. Everybody expected us to win by five goals or more. The closer we got to the end of the game the more the pressure on the players got up. The penalty in the end for Faroe Islands was correct, I think."
On the atmosphere in the arena:
"The crowd was amazing."
Gøran Johannessen (NOR) - left back
On what was missing for Norway to win the match:
"A couple of moments and things we were missing in the last three minutes as we were up [26:23] with three minutes to go. We have to be clinical, we have to be smart, clever and use the time to our advantage and we were not. So, they got the opportunity to score, not only once, but three times and that's why we get one point instead of two. We were simply not clever enough."
On whether they were surprised by the Faroe Islands:
"We know that they have a couple of really good players like Óli [Mittún], [Elias Ellefsen] á Skipagøtu and [Hákun West] av Teigum, that's three, but the joker was the goalkeeper [Nicholas Satchwell]. In the second half, we played really good, but we missed eight or nine chances in the second half and it's going to be tough, hard. We missed too much and we weren't clinical enough in the last three minutes."
POLAND VS SLOVENIA
Marcin Lijewski (POL) - head coach (POL)
On the game:
"Slovenia played very well. They have three fast players who are very difficult to defend. We tried to give our best, but we made too many technical errors in the first half and had huge problems in the transition to defence. As a result, we conceded too many easy goals. That is difficult to compensate against an experienced team like Slovenia."
On the future of the team:
"We are not entirely satisfied but we have a young team and are gaining experience for upcoming tournaments. We will give our very best in the next game against Faroe Islands and will go home with our heads held high."
Michal Olejniczak (POL) – centre back
On the loss to Slovenia and what went wrong in the match for the Poles:
"We knew that it was going to be a big clash between Slovenia and our team, we had in our head the game from last year in Poland, so we wanted to take a revenge, but this match cost us a lot of effort and we couldn't find solutions for Slovenia's defence. We tried our best, but I think the loss of power was too big for our players and Slovenia took this two points."
Luka Zvizej (SLO) - assistant coach (SLO)
On the win:
"We are very satisfied as we did the 2nd step as planned. We want to go step by step in the tournament. This was a very important match for both teams. Our players did exactly as planned."
Dean Bombac (SLO) – centre back
On being chosen as Player of the Match by the fans against Poland:
"This isn't important, we are here like a team and one game is one player, another game is another player and this is not important, what is important is our good performance today and that we played 60 minutes in the same tempo and level so that doesn't matter."
On his assessment of the win against Poland and what was crucial in securing the win:
"We ran like cannibals, up and down all the way and scored a lot of easy goals and we didn't concede so much. We know that we have more players, bigger and better rotation, so that was the difference."
On whether the win against Poland has raised confidence in the squad:
"The first match is always the most difficult and the team (the Faroe Islands) we played wasn't so good for us, everybody is smaller in the Faroe Islands. So, it was difficult as we have big player in the middle, and it was difficult to play.
“Now, Norway is the favourite from our group and we go match by match. We have a lot of players who aren’t here with us and we have injuries, so we need to fight and we came here to fight, to play match by match and we will see where will we finish."
TEXT: EHF / Filip Mishov
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