PPD Zagreb handball players are playing very badly this season. Like the former handball players of Croatia when they won the last, 16th place at the European Championship in Sweden in 2002. As a consolation, after that worst plasma at the big handball competitions, Croatia became the world champion next year. Lino Cervar took over the national team at the end of 2002 and performed a miracle. Now Lino is in Zagreb, as a sports advisor.
The whole season is in danger – I’ve only been in the club for two days. It’s hard for me to say anything concrete. The situation is not good, everyone sees it. Since 2002, when I first sat in the Zagreb club, we have never looked so bad. It was before the falls, but never like this. It was clear to the layman that nothing was good against Celjan. Absolutely nothing. It’s as if a team in style ran out on the floor – let’s play it.
How to help the club get rid of its legs sooner?
We need to hold a meeting at the club as soon as possible. And everyone, management, professional sting, manager and players. Something has to happen because we will put the whole season in danger. Okay, the Champions League is the end of the story, but there are other goals – placement in the final tournament of the SEHA Gazprom League, domestic championship and cup – Cervar points out.
What is the main problem with such a bad start to the season?
It’s hard to say now. Never in the history of the club, the people of Zagreb have had a single victory in official matches like this season. It will be the end of October soon, and the „gasmen“ can boast that they played a draw with Vardar (26:26) in the semifinals of the final tournament of the SEHA Gazprom League for last season. But is it a consolation when it is known that they had a plus six in that match just ten minutes before the end of the game?
It is interesting that these five consecutive defeats in the elite group of the Champions League are not the worst start of the club in this competition. It was the same last season when the „gasmen“ reached the first point only in six rounds. At the beginning of last season, the „gasmen“, like this season, quickly changed coaches. last season, Branko Tamše „hung up“ after minus ten in Aalborg, and this season Igor Vori after the defeat, also from Aalborg at home. A new change of coach in just a few months would not bring any serious progress and the club would turn out to be ridiculous.
He has had too many coaches changed in the last four years (ten) anyway. With such a small budget, it will be difficult for the club’s leaders to bring at least one top player in the meantime, and there should be at least three. Because quality costs. There will most likely be staff who need to wake up more urgently and come to the game. Because, against Celjana, some players simply did not come. All right, there were a lot of injuries (Burić, Šipić, Mrakovčić, Vuglač), sudden departures (Mlakar). All of this cannot be an excuse for such a bad release. Maybe he would have been a little better so that the game of the SEHA Gazprom League could be at least „stung“ by some victory. Considering the situation with the coronavirus, it is questionable when the regional league will start, which will be a failure in a week is not good, true Lino Cervar.
The club, which for years had a reputation and a biocene not only with the opponents but also in the premises of the European Handball Federation, became a bucket for shooting overnight. In five games, they have the number of goals conceded and given minus 50. Mathematically, they lost the game by an average of ten goals difference.
If it was easy for me, it wasn’t. I am aware of how bad the situation is, but I am not a person who just gives up so easily. I will try to make progress with work, work and only work. We have no other. The fact was that we were 5: 1 while Mandic was in the game and held the strings of our defense. With his exit due to injury, everything fell apart. The players from the bench did not react well and an ugly defeat occurred. Only one good game, only one victory would raise us from the dead. But where to find it. The SEHA league is not being played, the question is whether we will play in Nantes next week because the French team is in quarantine due to a larger number of infected players – says Vlado Šola.
