7m - Zagreb legend versus Zagreb

Slavko Goluza

Slavko Goluza is new Tatran Presov head-coach and symbol of HC Zagreb. As a player, captain and coach he has managed to win more than 20 different title with two European Champions Cup titles against Teka Santander and Wallau being two most shining jewels in the crown of his relationship with the club from Croatian capital. Interesting is that Goluza also used to captain Metkovic reaching two Croatian Cup titles with those two being the only Zagreb failed to take in 26-year long history.

Last season Goluza spent some time on PPD Zagreb bench after both Veselin Vujovic and Silvio Ivandija parted ways with the club reaching Croatian Cup title defeating Nexe after which Kasim Kamenica took his place. The two will now clash against each other in Presov.

Arrival to Presov marks Goluza’s premier coaching engagement away from Croatia. Knowing the fact that Slavko Goluza is most successful Croatian handball player with two Olympic and one WCh gold in his collection but also a coach with WCh, EC and Olympic bronze says quite much of how good investment he was for the team of Presov. He is however facing a big challenge after failing to lead his team through to CL group stage losing against Alpla Hard but we should highlight that ‘Keta’ came to Presov to rebuild the team and that he just started the process - process which appears to be off to a good start after a win against Meshkov.

"We’ve got to learn to win matches. It does not take ten goals, sometimes even one is enough for things to start working in a lot better way. We’re trying to stick with our playing style which we’ll surely sometimes fail to do all the way until it becomes a habit. Good and bad periods are a normal thing and we have to expect them to happen against quality teams like Zagreb or Celje. However, we’ll do everything we can to make things work. We must always be fully focused and motivated", concluded Tatran’s coach.

Interesting is that Goluza will try to beat Zagreb with four Croatian players in his roster - goalkeeper Cvitkovic, line players Babic and Vucko as well as Butorac who, just like Vucko, used to wear PPD Zagreb’ jersey back in the day which will surely provide them with additional motive to deliver their best. Zagreb are on the other side eager to bring a bad tradition, which says they’ve never managed to win a match in Presov, to a definite end on Wednesday night.