"There is probably no national team that had more problems in the preparation period than Montenegro. Even more than Croatia. There was almost no player and member of the coaching staff who was not affected by covid 19", thus the Croatian media announced the duel between the "lions" and " cowboy" in Budapest (Thursday, 15), at the start of the second phase of the European Championship for handball players.
They also remind that Montenegro was not led by coach Zoran Roganović in the first two matches.
"Montenegro played a good tournament. They also have certain problems, but they managed to pull themselves together. It is a team with a big heart, a team that plays very aggressively, firmly and patiently in attack. It will take a lot of concentration and patience for such a team to to win and score points," said Croatian coach Hrvoje Horvat.
Decimated by corona, Montenegro was defeated by world champions Danes 30:21 at the start of the championship. Then they beat North Macedonia with 28:24, and finally shocked Slovenia with 33:32.
Croatian media point out that the two Vujovićs are the best scorers - Branko, the right back, scored 20 goals, and Miloš, the left wing, scored 14 goals.
"The Montenegrin game is led by two experienced center backs, Vasko Ševaljević and Božo Anđelić. Another player is very important for that national team. It is the round forward Nemanja Grbović. If Stefan Vujović, Miloš Božović and Stefan Ćavor manage to recover, Montenegro could to be a tough bite for everyone in the second round," they state.
Croatia has many problems with the squad, Horvat invited as many as six new players for the second round, but emphasized that he is not thinking about the problems with the squad that plague the national team throughout the tournament.
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"We are still meeting, some came during the night. Some will unfortunately skip the next training, we will try to organize a mini-training with them later and try to do what we can in these conditions," Horvat concluded.
Croatia beat Montenegro three times at the European Championships, always in the first round. In Norway in 2008 it was 34:26, six years later in Denmark 27:22, and two years ago in Austria it was 27:21.
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