„It won’t be easy.”

The 24th Handball World Championship is different in many ways from the previous ones. Organization is excellent, it is almost perfect. However, the monumental Lusail Arena was quite empty and the smaller spots were not full yet, either. Our team’s wing, Cristian Ugalde is enjoying the tournament in Qatar, but he is a bit sad about not having the usual atmosphere. You can read our interview here.

 

 

It is unbelievable, you cannot see anything similar in the world, except the Olympic Games but here it is all about handball. We were at the opening ceremony and were shocked by the incredible show that the organizers had come up with. The arenas and the hotels are amazing, everything is perfect. Although, the games are quite different from what I got used to, because people are not really familiar with this sport here and not many of them visit the matches.

 

We’ve been through a very hard game. The Brazilian team is great with a Spanish coach, who knows everything about their team. They were absolutely prepared for playing against us, which made our situation more difficult. We had some problems in saving so the second half was tense.

 

Each team comes to the World Championship to win; previous achievements do not count here. Denmark was about to win during the whole game but Argentina, which I personally love, overtook them which resulted in a draw. This is not the first time; I remember they had similar performance against Sweden so it is worth observing them, because South America is improving rapidly.

 

 

From my perspective, the “common” teams, the handball powers are still the best: France, Denmark, Croatia and then us. We can participate in the semi-final but it will be terribly difficult. Germany and Sweden are also great, Poland is an unpleasant opponent. These are the teams that are likely to be in the final 4. We have to win in all matches; we cannot leave anything to chance. We should take notice of the hosts because they have already won two games. Moreover, Slovenia is in our group with excellent players.

 

It is impossible to meet, maybe on the court. Their hotel is in Doha, ours is in the suburb. Of course, we send messages but only on the internet. I’m sad that Gasper Marguc cannot be in the Slovenian team because he is a very good friend of mine and it would have been nice to see him.

 

Interview and photo: Veronika Varju