Unlucky No. 13

Hypo Niederösterreich were defeated by only three goals in Russia and they are confident about the second leg game coming up this weekend. Eurohandball.com asks András Németh about his expectations.

Eurohandball.com: What do you think about the narrow defeat of last weekend?

András Németh: I believe that the three goals can be levelled at home. I believes so on the basis that we did not play well in Togliatti – we played really badly – but we could still stay within three goals.

In Russia nearly everything went wrong: we had problems in coming back from our attacks and Lada made very easy fast breaks. We also had big problems with their open defence.

This worse performance is also due to the fact that we could not play big matches in the last five weeks and the international players of our club were away for the Olympic qualifications.

When they got back, we had to play a great number of matches in the Austrian Championship, ie. four games a week.

These matches are good for many things, except for Champions League preparations. In addition, we cannot even have trainings in such a rhythm and we win all these games very easily.

Eurohandball.com: What did you change in training over the last week?

Németh: We want to play more precisely and with better tactics. Togliatti were no surprise for us in the first leg, we can beat them this time. 

Eurohandball.com: What are your prospects before the second leg?

Németh: We will have no domestic games this week, so I hope we can work well. We will also play a test match against a boys’ team, which is expected to speed our game up.

The last game on Sunday was our weakest performance in the Champions League so far. This was our 13th game of the season and it may be our unlucky no. 13. We lost our clean record, but we can see the problems and we try to find remedies for them.

Eurohandball.com: Last year Hypo went out with a missed last-second penalty shot. Did you practice that more?

Németh: No, I think a 7-m throw is just depends on the nerves. We have great penalty-takers who won’t improve just because they try it a couple of times more in training...

Eurohandball.com: In the other semi-final Győr were convincing? Are you surprised?

Németh: I was a bit worried about them after the injury of Görbicz, and I have to admit that I believed that Zvezda had better chances before the game. Győr proved how much they are ready to fight even without their playmaker.