"Discipline is the key"

After losing in Denmark against Randers, Oltchim Râmnicu Vâlcea bounced back and won at home against Toulon. In their third match, the Romanian team is going to meet Larvik, in the top game of the Women’s EHF Champions League. Their new Hungarian coach Péter Kovács in confident in his team and stated that if Oltchim wants to win this match, the team needs to be intelligent and disciplined.

ehfCL.com: What went right and what went wrong in your first two CL matches?

Péter Kovács: Unfortunately we had a really bad day against Randers, everything went wrong. We made an enormous amount of mistakes in offence and our defence was too relaxed. Randers doesn't wait for special invitations to take advantage of such situations. Our second game was completely different, we put pressure on the opponent, kept our cool and our focus and worked hard in defence. From my point of view our two best assets in this match were our fast breaks and our defence: Toulon only scored 19 goals against us.

ehfCL.com: How should your team improve in order to win this group?

Péter Kovács: We are on the right track after winning against Toulon. However, it is vital to keep the momentum and take advantage of our good run with wins at Larvik and Toulon. The battle in this group is still undecided, therefore we need to remain focused and give 100% for 60 minutes. The key is finding the balance between discipline and intelligence.

ehfCL.com: What will you tell the players to motivate them against Larvik, as the pressure is on Oltchim after losing at Randers?

Péter Kovács: There are no secrets regarding our Norwegian counterpart. They were the most active team in the transfer market this summer. This can only mean that Larvik is more difficult to beat than last year. To a handball player, a match against a team like Larvik is motivation enough by itself. Matches such as this one can only make you dig deep within yourself and leave the best on court. This is what we have been preparing for; we feel we are in shape. Even though we still have some more tweaking to do in our play, rest assured: we will travel to Norway aiming for a win.

ehfCL.com: Larvik is touted to be one of the favourites at winning this year’s competition. How do you intend to stop them in this match?

Péter Kovács: Even if we started with a loss, we can’t be written off completely from the list of favourites, Oltchim is still one of the best teams in Europe. Playing against teams like Larvik can certainly help us to develop and to reach our potential. There are no secrets between these teams whatsoever. We have to improve with every match. We treat the game in Larvik as any other game. This means that we want to win. We need to try harder and find a balance between discipline in defence and the intelligence during our attacking plays. Far from me the thought that winning in Larvik would ever be easy, but I believe that my team has the necessary skills and quality to go to Norway and get a good result.

The EHF Women's Champions League top game of Group C, Larvik HK (NOR) vs. C.S. Oltchim Rm. Vâlcea on Saturday 23 October 2010 at 17:15 hrs (local time) will be broadcasted live on our free of charge web stream on ehfTV.com.