The season is over and it's with mixed feelings that I am now going on vacation.
Overall, I think we had a fantastic year in Flensburg.
We started the season with signing four new players; Jakobsson, Lauge, Mahé and Toft Hansen. I am truly satisfied with our decision to sign with all of them.
Zachariassens injury forced us to sign one additional player later on, Kozina. With five new players, I have to admit that I wasn't sure about how it all would work out, but I believed in all of them.
It is a challenge to build a team with so many new players. We set high goals and have big visions in the club. We all knew it was going to be difficult – but not impossible. All players needed time to adapt, and some still do. I am still not satisfied yet. I expect more from each one of them and I think they do too. We still want to improve our team performance and develop further, also on an individual level.
My senior players had a very important role this season. They assisted in introducing the new ones to the way we play and how we act as a team. They did a fantastic job.
We played a rather diversified defence, and I see a really nice future in that. Our offensive defence can develop much more next year to make it finer and more effective.
One of our strengths is to make fastbreaks. We created new ways to perform it and I think it worked out well for us. In attack we do have some more work to do. The outcome was not always as I hoped for. We can do better. The first two to three months we also had some timing problems, but they reduced in number at the end of the season. That is definitely one thing that I would like to continue perfecting next season.
After the European Championship in January, we had a few days to prepare for the first game of the second Bundesliga-Round. We had our best February since 2010, and that was incredibly satisfying. It is always tough to make top performances so soon after a championship.
Later on we reached the DHB Pokal Final 4 in Hamburg by defeating THW Kiel at their home court. It was actually the first time for me to win against THW Kiel in Kiel during my ten years at the SG Flensburg Handewitt. Everyone who has played in Kiel knows how difficult it is to win there. This season we managed to win in Kiel, twice.
In Hamburg we won the DHB Pokal semifinals against the Rhein Neckar Löwen, but had a tough set back when Lauge injured himself, and could not play the final. We lost the final game against a good SC Magdeburg – we were completely out of power. Our schedule before the Final 4 weekend was a really tough one. We had played one game away against Melsungen, two Champions League quarter finals against Kielce and one DHB Pokal Semifinal during the ten preceding days before the final in Hamburg. You just have to congratulate SC Magdeburg, winning the final was not undeserved.
The Champions League was a tough road for us this year. We met top teams like Paris, Kiel and Veszprem in the group face and all of them made it to Final 4 in Cologne. It was a new challenge, but a good one. To play against the best teams in the world is something that makes us all better. It is however very difficult for a German team to win all of those encounters. When you play in the Bundesliga, you can not assume to win a game with a 75% effort. The overall quality of the teams is simply too high. If you don’t focus to 100%, the risk to loose the match is too high. It's the reality we are playing in. In my opinion the quality between the teams in other leagues are more uneven, which gives you a little more space for recovery when you want to play at the highest level of all three competitions (Champions League, Bundesliga and DHB Pokal). On the other hand it makes the Bundesliga more exciting, unpredictable and fun to follow.
In order to relieve the players some, I really hope that it will be allowed to have 16 players on the bench and in the Bundesliga squad next year. It would enable us to continue playing at a high level in all competitions, without risking the health of the players.
We learned a lot this year. One hard lesson was to play the quarter finals against Kielce in the Champions League. It was one of the most disappointing moments this season, and in my entire career. Not that we played bad, we had prepared perfectly and played excellent handball, but from my point of view, we weren't allowed to win. I know it may sound like I am a bad looser, but I think it has to be said. The game between us and Kielce in Poland pushed the development of handball 15 years back in time. That was my exact feeling that evening in Poland. I was speechless. But as a professional you have to learn to live with a lot of things and one thing is defeat, even due to misconduct.
My question is why we can't do anything about it? I want our sport to develop. Not only coaches and players want to improve every year. I am pretty sure that referees do too! I really hope so. We need to use modern technology to help referees make the correct decisions on the field. New technology was tested at Final 4 in Cologne, with positive outcome. I hope that we can find a way to make our sport even more attractive than it already is. The referees also need the right financial resources to be able to prepare themselves better for the games. Their salaries are not high enough fort them to solely be able to focus on the next game.
During the Final 4 in Cologne anything can happen, and it did, this year as well. What an amazing sport we have, how can you not love handball! It's beautiful, and at the same time a cruel one. Veszprem started the final against Kielce in a perfect manner, but did not manage to complete the game they had started. Kielce won the Champions League after a dramatic comeback. Congratulations to Talant Dusjebajev and his team for a superb turn around and the reward for the longest Champions League season in history.
In Flensburg we continued to play great handball until the last game of the season, despite the lack of Lauge. We did all we could to put pressure on Rhein Neckar Löwen and won all of our remaining games, among those against Kiel and Melsungen.
The Rhein Neckar Löwen had a fantastic season and deserved to win the Bundesliga title. I congratulate the Rhein Neckar Löwen and I am glad for Nikolaj that he finally reached the top position, after being so close twice before.
To all Flensburg fans I want to say thank you for supporting us with all that you’ve got during every game. In good as well as bad times you stand by our side. That gives us as a team even more strength. Next year we will come back stronger than ever! This last season was fantastic, looking at the development of the team - but without a title it’s not good enough for me! I am taking my mixed feelings with me to strengthen the efforts of the coming season. But first, some vacation.
Sunny greetings,
Ljubomir Vranjes
