Still three home wins necessary

Norwegian women’s champions Larvik HK seem to have begun with a good habit: Winning their first away match in every Champions League group.

In the group phase they defeated Montenegrin champions Budućnost T Mobile 27-23 on "one of the toughest away courts in Europe," as head coach Karl Erik Bøhn put it back then.

This weekend the Norwegian girls took a 23-20 win in Sachsen against HC Leipzig in the first match of Main Round Group 1. Even though head coach Karl Erik Bøhn was not particularly happy with his team’s way of playing, he is very well aware of the importance of the win.

eurohandball.com: How important for the group was the win in Leipzig?

Karl Erik Bøhn: It was extremely important, as I do not think that many teams will be able to win in Leipzig. The match was not particularly good, but our defence did well, and Lene Rantala saved tremendously well in our goal.

eurohandball.com: Three out of four matches on the first match day of the Main Round ended with away wins. Does that surprise you?

Karl Erik Bøhn: No, not really, when looking at the individual games. Maybe our win in Germany was a surprise, but I was not surprised that Vâlcea could win away against a Hypo team with limited resources in the other group. And I was not particularly surprised either that Viborg took a narrow win in Volgograd.

eurohandball.com: You next challenge will be Saturday at home against last year’s finalists Györ. They won their first match at home against Krim by two goals. How do you see that match?

Karl Erik Bøhn: It is going to be an extremely tough challenge against this very strong Hungarian team, who have even got returning Anita Görbicz in top form again. However, at home in the Arena Larvik, I think we should be strong enough to win that game too.

eurohandball.com: After your fine start, have you started to dream about the semi-final already?

Karl Erik Bøhn: The semi-final is the great goal for all of us, but we will probably still have to win all our three home matches in order to reach that goal. I consider this to be realistic, though, as we are very hard to beat at home.