Promising Valcea, cautious coach

Eurohandball.com talks to the coach of Valcea, Gheorge Tadici. The Romanian side will visit to Budapest on Sunday to meet FTC. As it is normal for a title candidate, they promise to go for the victory.

Eurohandball.com: Valcea have been reinforced during the summer. Can you please introduce your team and your new players?

Gheorge Tadici: On paper, we are stronger than last year because we transferred Talida Tolnai and Raluca Ivan. We also promoted two very talented young players, Adriana Tacalie and Babeanu. Both Tolnai and Ivan must make our defence stronger. Tolnai has already shown her abilities against Viborg when she made decisive saves. We needed her because Luminita Dinu will retire at the end of the season. Ivan will prove her value in 2 months; she recently had a heart surgery. Tacalie will be a great player in a couple of years and Babeanu is very talented and promising.

Eurohandball.com: You have good results this season. You won Champions Trophy and showed great form in the CL qualification matches. What do you think Valcea can achieve this year? Maybe winning the CL?

Tadici: Our aim is to reach the Champions League semi-finals. Of course, if we go through, we will not be satisfied with less than qualifying for the final and winning it. But there are a lot of factors which can influence our results.

The most important is always the form of the players and to be healthy. Now we have injury problems because both our playmakers, Roxana Gatzel and Roxana Cherascu, are still not fit and we can’t count on Valentina Ardean Elisei at least until January 2008. She is also injured. These three are key-players in our squad and a very big loss tactically.

Eurohandball.com: Valcea will probably fight against Viborg for the top of Group D. What do you think about the chances within the group?

Tadici: Viborg are the biggest favorites of the group; they are very strong, a multinational team that is better than the best national teams in the world. I don’t think they can afford losing against FTC or Buducnost.

But that doesn’t mean that the Hungarian team and the Montenegrins have no chance against us or Viborg. They are motivated enough to show us that they can’t be underestimated. Everyone can beat everyone in our group, even if Viborg and Oltchim are favorites.

Eurohandball.com: You’ll visit the Hungarian champions FTC on Sunday. You knocked them out with a double victory in last year’s Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final. It should give you confidence for this match…

Tadici: Yes, we are confident, but it will be a difficult game. Of course our goal can only be a victory, but I am concerned because the majority of our players also play for the national team. They have 9 matches in a month and after these matches the World Championships are coming up in France. We must do something against tiredness.

I hope that with our ambition, motivation, heart and enthusiasm we will win all the three matches remaining in the CL this autumn and we will qualify for the quarterfinals as soon as possible.