LAST WEEK IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Pre-season has well and truly begun for most of Europe’s elite clubs and a new season means plenty of new arrivals are looking to impress.
Getting a sweat on and celebrating international success
Late July usually marks the start of hard work for the handball world and that was evident on social media this past week as our favourite players got a sweat on with teammates old and new.
This time of year is also full of international competition and many players had an eye on the Men’s 20 EHF EURO in Slovenia and the beach handball World Championship in Russia.
Celje line player Igor Anic must have had mixed feelings as he watched the Men’s 20 EHF EURO Final as his home nation France took on Slovenia in Celje.
Slovenia won a thrilling match 31:30, with Anic’ club teammate Grega Ocvirk leading the way with 11 goals. Anic took a selfie with another teammate Domen Makuc, who was part of the side to overcome a France team containing Montpellier’s Kyllian Villeminot as well as PSG’s Dylan Nahi and Edouard Kempf.
Lamprini Tsakalou, who plays for Slovenian side Krim, was supporting Greece’s beach handball team as they stormed to Women’s World Championship gold in Kazan.
Tsakalou has played for Greece’s beach handball team in the past and she showed her support with a throwback to her days in the sand.
Is that Dejan Manaskov showing off Veszprem’s new playing shirt? Not quite, the Hungarian club completed testing over the weekend before pre-season training begins in earnest.
Staying in Hungary, where pre-season is well-underway at Györ. The defending champions’ new arrivals such as Veronica Kristiansen and Amandine Leynaud make them a terrifying prospect, but there’s more firepower on the way as Nora Mork and Zsuzsanna Tomori are battling back from knee injury and spirits are clearly high among the rehab buddies.
Many of Rhein-Neckar Löwen’s newcomers already had a chance to impress in a friendly over the weekend and they were not messing around.
Jesper Nielsen and Jannik Kohlbacher scored six a piece as Löwen romped to a 52:16 win over HGW Hofweier.
Buducnost defied many people’s expectations last season by reaching the quarter-finals with a youthful team and they will be expecting more this coming year with the return of Katarina Bulatovic from Rostov.
Bulatovic had a chance to catch up with the squad on Sunday night with a team dinner, before the hard work begins.
Photo: zrkb.me
TEXT:
Chris O'Reilly / br