Croatian vice-champions have managed to end the bad series with a confident 39:29 win over Izvidac Ljubuski.

It was, however, from the beginning visible that the team from Nasice is under a lot of pressure after three losses as they have opened the match quite nervous. Izvidac’s back were doing great job from behind the 9-meter line and on the other side Izvidac was also very good in punishing NEXE’s attacking mistakes scoring some easy counter-attack goals enlarging the gap to 3 less than 10 minutes into the match. However, NEXE has eventually managed to find a solution for guests’ 5-1 defense and Barisic-Jaman has brought them first lead at 13:12 wih little more than 5 minutes left to play in the first half. Lorger was also on great level and NEXE reached +3 before the break. Interesting is that Josip Sarac was 8/9 in first 30 minutes.

Advantage after the first half has later proved to be the key with NEXE’s players looking like a big burden was taken of their back during the break. In the second half they were displaying flying performance with a variety of goals from every position. Lorger and Lelic have combined for 17 saves and Zrnic was proving that he’s living one of his best handball years with 10 goals. On the other side Sarac finished the match with 11.

Zdenko Kordi, NEXE coach:
We’ve had a good approach today with all of our players showing unity and contributing to this victory. We were playing much better in defense as well as in attack where we’ve managed to score more goals than in first 3 matches of the season.

Marin Sakic, NEXE player:
This victory is for our self-confidence. My opinion is that the final result is not realistic as Izvidac has a much better team. We were doing our best to break their resistance in the first half while keeping up with both attacking and defensive tactics set before the match.   

Zdenko Grbavac, Izvidac coach:
We are a very young team and SEHA Gazprom league is a school for us. We’ve today showed that we know to play handball and play it well but it was not enough against a team as experienced as NEXE.

Josip Sarac, Izvidac player:
I’ve today showed what I can but it was not enough. We did not have enough players in good mood today, it just wasn’t our day. We can play much better.