“We could not carry this burden”

Eurohandball.com asks Győri Audi ETO players about the semi-final second leg lost on home court against Zvezda Zvenigorod.

Katalin Pálinger: "Everyone wanted to reach the final, me too, but the team play was not flawless unfortunately. We had many lucky victories this season, but this time luck was not on our side. We were unsuccessful; the balls just fell in the hands of the opponents. We have to know that everyone has to play well to beat such a high class team. We were missing a couple of good performances for this, but I’m sure that everyone did everything for the victory. We have to go on and face the many tasks ahead of us this season."

Anita Görbicz: "My injured ankle did not ache; I only felt that dribbling was not as quick as usual. We lost this game because of our soft defending. The Russians were scoring easily; I don’t even understand why we did not make more faults. The girls played very well in Chekhov, but we could not repeat that good defending. We did not take it easily after the first leg and we prepared hard for the game. It is unbelievable that not even the fantastic saves of Pálinger were enough. Our attack was also a catastrophe.

"Many ask me every year why we fail in the decisive moments. I can’t tell it either. I’m very sorry for the fans who would have deserved the success for supporting us every game of the season."

Ágnes Hornyák: "We could not carry the burden of being favourites. Only if we would have lost in Russia by two goals and not won, the second leg would have been different. We had a bad day. In Russia everything went well, but they learnt from our defensive style and they made use our open defence and score many goals by the line player. We didn’t believe that we would end this campaign like this; we have to think it over."

Ana Dokic: "Ági Hornyák believes that the problem is that we are too few and I agree. I knew that the Russian could not play so badly twice in a row and we cannot allow ourselves to have two or three players not in form. We have to get ourselves together and win the Hungarian league. A good sportsman can move on after such a moment."