Two defeats in less than 24 hours left Montenegrin handball players without a chance to fight for a medal at the European Championship.
It is not a failure, rather it can be said that it is reality at this moment, because the dream is the chosen one Suzana Lazović about the semi-finals dispersed in duels with objectively better teams - Hungary celebrated with a six-goal difference on Thursday despite the excellent start of the "lionesses", and France even more convincingly a day later when it was on plus eight.
It is a match in which Montenegro made too many mistakes in attack, and one of the causes - if not the main one - can be found in the obvious lack of energy, fatigue...
"The regret remained, especially after the match with Hungary, because I think we beat ourselves. We felt in that match that we could do more, while against France, fatigue was present and it was felt in each of us. It was difficult to cope with the opponent's rhythm, but also to find my own game," says the winger Nina Bulatović.
In both defeats, the key was in the attack of our national team...
"There were a lot of mistakes in the attack. Fatigue is present, we practically only have one line-up and it is difficult to play a tournament like this in this schedule in the desired rhythm", added Bulatović.
Today from 15.30:20.30 Montenegro plays Poland, on Tuesday the rival is Sweden (XNUMX:XNUMX). The "Lionesses" want to be third in the group and for that they need two wins to stay in the game for the fifth position at the EP which probably leads to the World Championship.
"The fact that we feel tired does not mean that we will not give everything against Poland. Do we have the strength? We will try to find her. It's hard to come back after any defeat, but we have a motive, as always when we play for the national team," Nina points out.
Andrijana Tatar emphasizes that it will not be easy against the Polish women.
"Poland showed that they know how to play well, and there is no bad opponent in the main stage. I believe that we will be the right ones," said the 28-year-old pivot.
I Katarina Dzaferovic there is no doubt that the main reason for the defeat against France is fatigue. The world champions showed their power in "Feniks Arena" in Debrecen, but Montenegro had and missed its chances.
"Fatigue was present, but we didn't implement many of the agreements we had on the field. However, there is no room to complain, there is no reason to be nervous either - we have two games coming up. I believe that they will bring us what is now the goal - to go to Vienna to fight for fifth place. We really want to go to Vienna, we want the fifth position", Kaća Džaferović is clear.
Montenegro defeated Serbia, Romania and the Czech Republic in the preliminary group, then two defeats followed, and two more matches remained until the end of the main round.
"We didn't give up, of course, even though we had no chance to fight for the semi-finals. I expect that we enter the next two matches with calm heads, aware that we have new goals. I am sure that the defense will be a key segment in the game and I believe that we will get into the right rhythm at the end of the championship", concluded Džaferović.
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