Right after the game that HSV Hamburg won on Sunday against Wisla Plock in the Champions League, Handball-Planet.com talked to Domagoj Duvnjak, the Croatian international, one of the top players of HSV. We talked to him a bit about everything, the Champions League and Bundesliga expectations, as well as the upcoming major national teams event, the European Championship in Serbia, to be held in January 2011, where Croatia will have a „mountain“ to climb in the first two phases, before they try to win some medal.
Q1: You won again in the Champions League, you are having a great run. Do you believe you can make it to the Final Four in Köln again ?
DD: Hard question. It will be hard, we all know it but of course we want to go to the Final Four in Köln again, especially after seeing what kind of spectacle and event it is. We will go slowly, from game to game, and we have so far the first place in the group. I hope that the draw will bring us some not-so-strong opponent in the 1/8 final, and with some luck perhaps in the quarter-finals as well, and that way to go the F4 in Köln.
Q2: It is almost halfseason in the Bundesliga. Kiel is unbeaten, but you play them soon in Kiel, a chance to get close to them. What are your chances to defend the „Meistertitel“ in Germany?
DD: It is true that Kiel went ahead a bit, they are 4 points ahead of us. But I say, the season is long and there are lots more games to be played. We play against Kiel in about 3 weeks time, and I hope that it will be a great game for us, and that we will be able to win it, and get close to Kiel with this game.
Q3: A little about the national team. Contemplating the fact that Croatia plays in a very hard group at the European Championship in Serbia 2011, and that the draw will make you play France and Spain should you advance further, what are your expectations from the European Championship?
DD: For us it will be very important and crucial to take 4 points from the first phase. We are in a very hard group with Slovenia, Iceland and Norway. It won’t be easy, we will go from a game to a game, and I think that the first game against Iceland is the most important, and should we be able to win that game, then we will get very big self-confidence, and afterwards we will be „flying“ on the court. Then come Spain and France, we know what kind of teams they are, but I think that must first concentrate on the first phase and bring 4 points from the group into the second phase, and then I think a semi-final is very probable. We know that we have a good team, and if no one gets seriously injured, then I think that we have very good chances for a medal. I hope that we will manage to present us in good light.
Q4: Why did Croatia play so bad at the Nations Cup in Serbia, not enough preparations or?
DD: I can’t say, there are many reasons. It wasn’t our priority to win the tournament. We are of course sportsmen and we want to win all games, but simply it didn’t go well at that tournament during those 3 days, and it’s better that it happened at this tournament than at the European Championship. I’m sure we will learn some things from this tournament. It was a very well organized tournament and we saw great use of it, as we now know where we will play and where we will stay, so all in all I’m content from this tournament, but simply we just didn’t play well.
Q5: We’ve been reading that you’ve refused to speak to the journalists at the Nations Cup in Serbia. What was the problem?
DD: I think that was simply a misunderstanding. When I was at the press-conference with the Czech Republic, I like to joke and I said to our spokesman „no no, not now, not now“, and him to me „not this, not that“, and unfortunately the journalists heard it as well. I’m a person that always open to journalists for interview and talk, and I’m very sorry that this happened in Serbia, and I’ll try to be always reachable to journalists.
