Xavi Sabaté leads the Hungarian national team

The Hungarian Handball Federation has appointed Xavi Sabaté, the Spanish coach of MVM Veszprém as the head coach of the Hungarian national team. The appointment of our coach is valid until June 15, 2016 when the Hungarian-Serbian World Championship ends and he is going to work for our team simultaneously.

 

 

- We are glad that we found Xavi Sabaté who, we are hoping, will be able to reach our goal to qualify to the French World Championship and hereby, we also would like to thank MVM Veszprém for allowing him to have double role during the time of the SEHA League and the Champions League finals. - said András Novák, Secretary General of the Hungarian Handball Federation. According to the decision of the management, we wanted to appoint a coach who has proper qualifications, lives in Hungary, and knows well the whole team. The national team is facing a big challenge but we are sure that Xavi Sabaté will help the team succeed in the qualifying contest against Serbia.

 

- We are happy that we found the new head coach of the Hungarian national handball team, we made the right decision. – added László Marton, Vice-President of the Hungarian Handball Federation. All those concerned were really positive about the discussions; Sabaté as well as the team of Veszprém tried to find the best solution for the sake of the national team so we would like to thank them on behalf of the whole team.

 

 

- It is my pleasure being appointed as the head coach of the national team; I gladly accepted it. The qualifying contest against the Serbian team is a really big challenge; we are going to do everything to get into the 2017 World Championship. This is our most important aim so all I can think about right now is the contest, not to build a younger team. – Xavi Sabaté said. The current situation requires compromises regarding the preparation, the training camps and the matches; this is the only way we can succeed. The key to reach agreement was that MVM Veszprém was extremely open and supportive about it. Needless to say, the achievements of Veszprém in the following months are still as important as they always have been.

 

Xavi Sabaté was born in 1976, became a player of Barcelona, worked as the coach of the Catalan youth team until 2010, and then worked as assistant coach of Antequera until 2012. He has become the assistant coach of Veszprém from 2012 and has been appointed as head coach of the CL-finalist team from September, 2015. As the coach of the Hungarian Championship title-defender, he won the SEHA League regular season, and was the runner-up of the Champions League Group A having defeated Paris St. Germain, Flensburg-Handewitt and THW Kiel; he is currently preparing for the K&H Men’s Handball League play-off and the CL 1/8 final against the Ukrainian Motor Zaporozhye. The head coach will appoint his assistant coach soon and in April he will debut in Toulon in the game against the Olympic and World Championship title-defender France. Xavi Sabaté added that his assistant coach is going to be a Hungarian professional.

 

 

Photos: Zsolt Melczer