Karabatic Wants "More Perfect Season"

Nikola Karabatic was the special guest and helping hand at the Men’s Champions League Draw for the 2007/08 season. The left back player of CL winning THW Kiel was handed over the Top Scorer Award as well for last season. Paul Bray, moderator of the evening, asked Nikola about his achievement.

Paul Bray: You had an amazing season: won the Champions League together with the top scorer award, you won the German Championship and the German Cup and you were also chosen best player of the league. What can be your next goal?

Nikola Karabatic: It was a pretty good season, we won almost everything possible, but we lost the World Championship semi-final against Germany. It could have been more perfect…

Paul Bray: Next year you can try again in Beijing, maybe…

Nikola Karabatic: It will be a great year for us: Olympic Games, European Championship and Champions League. We will have a lot to do; we hope to win all of these. That is the reason I signed a new contract, we still have objectives with my club.

Paul Bray: You have Omeyer, another French player in Kiel. Did he help you to feel at home?

Nikola Karabatic: I moved to Kiel two years ago and I felt at home already after 4 months. It is a good club, good managers… It is perfect for a player to be in Kiel. I hope we will sign even more French players as I always speak only German and at the end I forget French.

TEXT: Paul Bray

Viborg Coach: Tough Teams Ahead

“These are tough opponents,” commented Viborg HK coach, Tomas Ryde, right after the draw of the first group stage in the Women’s Champions League. His team was drawn into Group D together with Budapest Bank-FTC from Hungary, Buducnost T-Mobile from Montenegro and the winner of Qualification Group 3 (with Romanian Oltchim Valcea, Norwegian Byåsen, Portuguese Madeira Andebol and a team from the first qualification round.

“If Valcea win their qualification group – as I expect – I’m quite sure that they will be our toughest opponents, while I’m in doubt about the two other teams,” Tomas Ryde told Eurohandball.com.

Question marks: Buducnost and FTC

“I think that Budocnost have a very good team, but I’m not sure how they will improve after their recent coach change. However, our new Serbian player, Bojana Popovic, will be able to provide us with a lot of information about them,” said Ryde. The Swedish coach has also questions about FTC Budapest.

“At the moment it is quite difficult to say a lot about that team. I’m not sure, whether they are as strong as they were last season. They lost their coach (András Nemeth has joined Austrian Hypo Niederösterreich, ed.) and a couple of players too. I don’t know their strength right now. Anyway, we are optimistic as we always have to be,” concluded Viborg’s Swedish coach.

TEXT: Peter Bruun

Aalborg Expect Difficult CL

Danish Women’s Champions League team Aalborg DH were not very happy with the Champions League Qualification and Main Round draw.

In the qualification group (28-30 September), Aalborg will meet Ukrainian HC Motor Zaporoshye and Greek champion ASE Ormi Patras (hosts of the group) and the winner of Group B in the first qualification round (Serbian ZRK Milos, Dutch Van der Oort Quintus, Swedish IK Sävehof or Milli Piyango from Turkey).

“This is a very tough group, a big challenge. We have great respect for Motor Zapooshye in particular, while we saw the Greek team two years ago and we should be able to beat them – just as the last team in the group, whichever team that might be,” said Aalborg’s new coach, Leif Gautestad.

“I do not know anything about the Greek team. Regarding Zaporohye, we met them the in the qualifiers two years ago and defeated them on aggregate,” said one of Aalborg’s Danish national players, Louise Mortensen.

Director: One thing at a time

“Of course, our qualification group is tough, but fortunately we don’t have to meet Zaproroshye on their home ground. However, there is really no point in commenting the main group before winning the qualification group,” Aalborg director, Erik Just, told Eurohandball.com.

If Aalborg could qualify for the main tournament, they would meet Slovenian Krim Mercator Ljubljana – they already met last two years in the CL –, Russian Zvezda Zvenigorod and German champion FC Nürnberg.

“Krim is a wonderful club to visit. They are nice people and highly professional at the same time. Their team are tough opponents, just as Zvenigorod. However, we must be ready for all challenges and all opponents,” Erik Just added.

TEXT: Peter Bruun