HSV Preparing for a Good Season

HSV Hamburg will play the Champions League for the first time in the history of the club, but the team of the Northern seaport fully deserves to host the best European clubs. The German side won the Cup Winners’ Cup last year and finished second in the Bundesliga after chasing THW Kiel until the very last round.

The first big test was Brümmerhoff Cup last weekend. HSV lost against Hungarian Veszprém in the semi-final and defeated Danish Kolding the next day. Eurohandball.com talks to coach, Martin Schwalb.

Eurohandball.com: What do you think about the first pre-season tournament of HSV?

Martin Schwalb: It was not so good… We were a little tired and the first match against Veszprém was… If I say “not good”, that is not the right expression. We lost the first half 20 to 8. Well, there’s no problem: we want to have a good season, not a good pre-season.

Eurohandball.com: What is this period like for the players? They only have physical trainings?

Martin Schwalb: No, we do everything, but 50-60% of the job is physical training, the rest is handball. We need 2-3 weeks to be fresh and ready for the season,

Eurohandball.com: There are some changes in the already strong team...

Martin Schwalb: We have five new handballers including the Danish national player, Lindberg, the Russian Torgowanov and the goalkeeper of the German team, Johannes Bitter. We have some good guys, but they must play together, we need a lot of exercise.

Eurohandball.com: HSV will play Champions League for the first time. Are you looking forward to that?

Martin Schwalb: It is a big honour to play in the CL, first of all. This team should have the quality to play in this competition. We want to get to the next round. We are in a hard group with the Ukrainian Zaporozhye and Russian Chehovskie Medvedi. I think it is possible to make it, the rest we will see.



Eurohandball.com: What’s next for the team?

Martin Schwalb: The Schlecker Cup. We will play against Montpellier and Gummersbach on Saturday and than we will see who we meet on Sunday. These are all good teams, we hope to perform better than last weekend.