The final tournament of the Serbian Cup 2020 in women’s competition in Zrenjanin brings interesting matches and uncertainty, about which the coaches of the participating teams agreed.
In the semifinal matches on Saturday, ZORK Jagodina and ZRK Bekament Bukovicka Banja (12) will meet, that is, RTB Bor and ZRK Naisa (14).
Naisa from Nis, Svetislav Beli Jovanović, believes that his team has its chances:
We are a shade weaker than last season and I am sorry that we did not play at the right time, but we still jumped a good team eager for results. I think we are the favorites in the semifinals and the final is an open story. All three teams have a chance, although the Cup is a competition with surprises, so we should not underestimate Bor, which has a solid team and experienced coach Zoran Barbulović.
The coach of the defenders of the cups from Arandjelovac, Saša Bošković, sees the first weekend of the season as follows:
The beginning of the new competition season will mark the end of what we left as an unfinished business in the past, and that is the fight for one of the trophies. I wouldn’t go back too far into the past, but at the time of what kept us all from functioning normally, and that’s the appearance of the corona virus, we were like a team on an upward trajectory of form, games and results and I think we were on the right track then to achieve great success. It is clear that we do not live from the past, that is why in the new circumstances we, like everyone else, adapted and followed the instructions of the authorities, we worked and work in specific conditions, we adapted to the circumstances, taking care to preserve the health of players and everyone in the club. Compared to that, last unfinished season, the team has undergone changes, we have been rejuvenated, changed, with the departure of 2 important players to Kragujevac and without the long-time creator of the game Maja Radoičić, who is on a well-deserved maternity leave, but that does not diminish our ambitions. trip to the final tournament of the Serbian Cup in Zrenjanin, where we will try to win the trophy. I tried to play the team as well as possible together with the professional staff, but a lot of things were specific around us, so we had to adapt to the problems that the virus brought with it. The first obstacle is the great rival Jagodina, with which we are playing at a rather unusual time, at 12:00. Of course it doesn’t suit either the opponent or my team, but that’s the way it is. All of us together, at the same time, after a long break, return to the competition obligations, and immediately the stakes are high. Due to all that, a certain pressure will not only be on the players, the professional staff, but also on the officials who, like us, were preparing for this spectacle in Zrenanin in uncertainty. Like us, they return to their obligations after a long competition break. For us, despite the big role, next weekend, the most important thing will be to protect ourselves from illness and injury and for everything to go well, and for everyone in handball, and in sports in general in Serbia, to slowly return to normal and start normal we work, train, and compete, I hope in the presence of the audience and fans, because without them everything is somehow quite „empty“.
The coach of Bor, Zoran Kiza Barbulović, emphasizes that with the placement in Zrenjanin, the greatest success in the history of the club was achieved.
First of all, this is the biggest success for our club in CUP competitions, we never reached the very end. Considering that we were participants in the Super B League last year, and that we first won the Central Serbia Cup, and then won two Super A leagues until the semifinals, it is a great honor for us to be in the company (Vojvodina and Zajecar). years ago, the best teams in Serbia in women’s handball. We are aware that we are complete outsiders, as the preparatory matches say (we lost convincingly to both Naisa and Jagodina), but we want to play the best possible match with Naisa as participants in the semi-finals. They are big favorites, we will try to give our maximum. We’ll see how much that’s enough.
The champion team of Jagodina (2018 and 2019) wants to add the Cup trophy after the Super Cup won in the fall of 2019 in Mionica. All teams have such wishes, claims coach Dragan Markov:
Like everyone they said, no one liked this big break. It is certainly felt in the work in all teams, but thank God we are back to doing what we love above all else. I hope that it will continue like that, that is the primary goal to return to a normal life. As for the final tournament, the expectations are the same, we have a desire to win the Cup, but in front of us is the old sports rival Bekament. As always, an uncertain match awaits us. We all have the same wishes, everyone would like to rejoice, and our expectations are that it will be us.