Celje – Veszprém pregame statements

Telekom Veszprém starts the new VELUX EHF Champions League season on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. We play in Slovenia against RK Celje Pivovarna Lasko. We asked three of our players about the next game and the CL series ahead of us.

 

László Nagy: The team is eager about the start of the Champions League. The opponent is familiar, we met them in our own tournament in August and played a close game against them. The fact that they are at home can give them a motivation boost and I am sure they will give a great performance. We can rely on our two championship games and the defense we had in those games. It has to be stable. We have to prevent Celje from making easy fast break goals. The only advantage we can give to our opponents – not just Celje, but anybody - is if we let them run. The most important thing is to prevent that.

Our group is strong again but we only have to focus on ourselves. New players came, our coach is new and he brought some new sense. We have to take his tactical orders in and I think we can improve in that game by game, training by training. If can pay attention to that and only focus on ourselves we can even win our group no matter how hard it is. If not then to achieve a place which is good for carrying on. Our plan is to win all of our games while our goal is to qualify for the Final4. Anything can happen there on a weekend.

 

 

Roland Mikler: We play our first Champions League game of the season against Celje in which we would like to achieve a confident win. We played against them multiple times and we could meet them eye to eye in our tournament lately. I feel like we can prepare for them well and I think the team has the momentum right now. It was the plan all along. We will try to continue this way and score more than 30 goals in this game too. We have to continue this quick game. I am sure Celje will play quickly too so I expect a game with a lot of goals. We will arrive ready to win.

Our group is without doubt a difficult one. We will have great clashes. We cannot make mistakes in our home games. To finish on a better place in the group we have to take points home from the road. It is not going to be easy even the qualification for the Final4 will be a hard task to accomplish because every team signed good players for the next year and we will not be offered the Final4 on a silver plate. The goal of the team is to win every game. It is not a cliché, it is our legit goal.

 

 

Máté Lékai: We played a preparation game against Celje but it is nothing compared to a Champions League game. We usually get drawn in the same groups lately so both teams know each other really well. A lot of Veszprém supporter comes to Celje with us, as they will do it now, which is always a great feeling. Naturally we want to take the 2 points home but anything can happen in a CL game. I expect a difficult clash.

We have a difficult group again this year. The two teams that strengthened the most are Paris, with Sagosen and Corrales and Kielce, with Dujshebaev and Janc. Both teams are in our group. The final goal is the Final4. It almost does not matter how we play in the group phase as long as we qualify for Cologne. Tiny details will decide there and I hope it will in our favor.

 

 

Photos: Dávid Vörös