Quotes from the 3rd place match

KS Vive Targi Kielce

Grzegorz Tkaczyk (left back, KS Vive Targi Kielce): "Today, we have been the better team from the first minute and consequently we deservedly won. This victory is also for our fans, who supported the whole team fantastically."

Rastko Stojković (line player, KS Vive Targi Kielce): “It is absolutely great to win versus such a strong team like Kiel. Now, we are not better than the others, because we won. But we have shown that we can keep up with the best teams in Europe. That is an important step for us!”

Ivan Čupić (right wing, KS Vive Targi Kielce): “We won against the great Kiel!  We played very well at the beginning of the game, but struggled the last 15 minutes when Kiel almost turned the game around. All in all, we must be very happy and satisfied – we ended the season with a bronze medal at the Champions League and demonstrated we deserve to be here.”

Venio Losert (goalkeeper, KS Vive Targi Kielce): “It is a great victory for us. We started the game focused and eager to win. It wasn’t an easy match, but I think we deserved to win. I am sure the last couple of minutes of the match we caused a lot of heart attacks in Poland. We apologize for that and thank our supporters immensely.”

Bertus Servaas (president, KS Vive Targi Kielce): "I am very proud of my team, handball is such a beautiful sport. This is a wonderful advertisement for handball in Poland. We came to learn from the best teams in Europe. This is great for the city, for the region and for Poland."

Michał Jurecki, (left back, KS Vive Targi Kielce): "You don’t beat THW Kiel everyday, so we are going to enjoy it. I am also very happy for our wonderful fans."

THW Kiel 

Momir Ilić (left back, THW Kiel): "It seems that yesterday’s defeat against Hamburg severely affected our game. We put up a fair play, but didn’t play as a team. This squad has been together for four years and during that period we have demonstrated excellent handball. That is why I regret not finishing the season with a title.”

Andreas Palicka (goalkeeper, THW Kiel): “We got into the match very badly. We played a very bad first half. For the second half we said that we have to fight. We played for ourselves and the fans, we wanted to show a good performance. We fought very well and that worked out. We almost managed to win. We were seven goals behind and it was close in the end. The whole weekend didn’t go well. It’s a big disappointment, but that’s how it is.”

Marcus Ahlm (line player, THW Kiel): “Of course we’re not satisfied at all that we missed the final. We’re disappointed. We always want to win games; that wasn’t a burden for us. We weren’t good enough yesterday. I think this season was still successful as we won the German championship.”

Thierry Omeyer (goalkeeper, THW Kiel): “It didn’t go as we wanted. We came to win the title. It was difficult to find motivation for the second match today. I will need more than one week to forget about this.”

Daniel Narcisse (centre back, THW Kiel): "We had a catastrophic first half, but we showed character and almost made it to recover the handicap. Therefore I remain very proud of the team. The deception is huge."