Itana Grbić: French women are not happy to play with us

From the special reporter "Vijesti"

Along with Jovanka Radičević, another Montenegrin handball player's home is Skopje - Itana Grbić. She came to the capital of North Macedonia in 2014, stayed until 2016, and now in the city on the banks of the Vardar, she will look for her first semi-final at a major competition.

The girl who came to Vardar as a winger, and later returned to the position of center back, talks about her return to Skopje with a twinkle in her eyes.

"When we trained in the 'Jane Sandanski' hall, Joka and I saw some photos from the 2015/2016 season. and a very nice feeling awoke. I think it was the most important step in my career, even though I didn't play much, but I matured, because I came to Skopje when I was just 18 years old," says the organizer of the game "Lavica".

In the "Boris Trajkovski" hall tonight (20.30:XNUMX p.m.) there is a big showdown with France, and we know what the main trump card is:

"Solid and strong defense, as before. Our attack failed a bit, especially in the last game against Poland, but the defense held us. The focus will still be on her, but also on recovering from the attack. Although France has top defenders, it scores more goals in transition than in the set zone. There is a lot of room for improvement in our attack, we didn't show everything there, I hope it will go better in these three games".

Bojana Popović's team played their last match on Wednesday, so they await the confrontation with the Olympic champion rested.

"It is very important that we rested. At first, it seemed to us that the break was too long, but it is good that we got time to rest and, I hope, start new victories. I think it will mean a lot to us, because a few players carried the burden the most in the first three games".

There are holes in the French defense that could be exploited.

"They play completely differently with the first and second lineups. When Nze-Minko is on the court, the deeper 5:1 zone is played more, she is perhaps the best ball stealer of all in women's handball. A lot of girls know Đin, Tanja and I from Brest, and they laughed when they saw that we crossed paths again and wondered if a competition could pass without us meeting. Honestly, I don't think they are happy playing against us, they always struggle. And last year in Spain, with such a weakened team, we held on until the 50th minute and I believe that with the great help of the referees, they achieved a turnaround. They also have weak points and flaws, which we will try to find".

The "Lionesses" were helped by the victories of Germany over the Netherlands and Romania over Spain, as they now have three points more than all those teams. If they beat France, they will practically be in the semi-finals.

"However those duels ended, everything depends on us. A lot is decided by the game with France. We have never relied on others or been lucky enough to have someone do something for us, as we opened the way for Spain to the semi-finals at the World Cup in Japan by beating Sweden. The focus is only on our game", Grbić said.