Paris eye quarter-final berth, Dinamo need a point in MOTW
In the penultimate round of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League 2022/23 group phase, two group A teams could book direct quarter-final spots. Paris Saint-Germain Handball just need a point against Orlen Wisla Plock, while SC Magdeburg need a win in Zagreb and Telekom Veszprém HC to lose against FC Porto in order to finish in the top two spots.
Magdeburg are playing extremely fast, constantly pressuring the opposition through the attacking transition. We'll have to be aggressive in defence and play maybe even above our realistic capabilities for 60 minutes. Everything is on us. We believe in ourselves, we believe that we have what it takes to play a competitive match against them. They have a favourite role going into this one, but I assure you we definitely won't surrender before the full-time buzzer.
Zagreb have a strong team and a great audience. It will be difficult, but we want to secure second place with a win.
Last time we fought to the end, but we knew that winning in Paris would be a very difficult task. In Plock we expect a completely different match, we already know how the Parisians play and we are more aware of how to approach this match so that it ends better than in France.
The atmosphere is good. We must stay together. We are not in the best position, but we can still go to the quarter-final, so I think nothing is lost. We will do our best against Porto and Paris, we want to win these two matches. We need to trust ourselves more. We have an amazing team, and we can beat everyone. In the last two matches we missed a lot of shots. If we find a solution to this, we will be much better.
Celje come to us without pressure and have nothing to lose. They are at the highest level when they can just play freely. We suffered a defeat in Celje and we definitely have to and want to put things right on Wednesday. But that won't be easy. Celje are seventh in the table, but they have a young team with quality that enjoys playing handball.
The game against Pick Szeged will be very difficult. We expect a very different game from the first one back in September. They have improved a lot in the past few weeks. They do many different things on offence, with external shooting and also in the line game.
We are in good mood, the goal is accomplished but we don’t go so far to France to play a friendly game. This is EHF CL and Talant Dujshebaev says "treat the next opponent like this would be a world champion” and in that way we are thinking about Nantes.
