Rokavec: ‘I hope we’ll make it despite of everything’

PPD Zagreb sign Ristanovic

PPD Zagreb and Vojvodina will on Monday night (19.00 CET) meet in Sutinska vrela sports hall in what will be the last SEHA match in 2018 for Croatian champs. Vojvodina, on the other hand, still have to meet Steaua at home in a postponed round 12 match on Thursday. 

With Christmas break right around the corner, situation is not ideal in either team with PPD Zagreb feeling exhausted with the match against Serbian champions being their third in only six days. Boris Rojevic, on the other hand, once again won’t be able to count on at least five of his first-team players.

However, result of their first encounter of the season in Novi Sad, in which guests celebrated a narrow 20:23 victory, suggests we’re definitely up to a close one in which PPD Zagreb will look to finish 2018 on top of the standings and Vojvodina will try to take advantage of home-team’s rough schedule and grab some points which would help them overtake Steaua’s sixth position on League table which would come as another proof of the fact they’re having one of their best SEHA seasons so far. Match will be broadcasted on Arena Sport channels, Sport klub (Poland) and Sport TV (Slovenia) so make sure to tune in!

Davor Rokavec, PPD Zagreb coach: 
We're dealing with some really tough schedule lately which is the main reason why we won't really have much time to prepare for the match against Vojvodina. Of course, we respect Vojvodina and we're aware we'll have to approach the match better than against Izvidjac. In case players give their best and still lose I'm proud of them because I want to see them give everything they’ve got each time they're out there. I hope we’ll make it despite of everything because it would be great to finish the year off with another victory. 

Tin Kontrec, PPD Zagreb player: 
This will be our third match in only six days and obviously we’re all quite exhausted. Vojvodina have a good team and we respect them but I believe we can finish 2018 victoriously in case we play our best handball. 

Boris Rojevic, Vojvodina coach: 
We’ve played a quality game against PPD Zagreb in the first part of the season. However, they’ve improved since then and it’s always a challenge to play against such a team. It’s never easy to defeat them in Zagreb and unfortunately, we’ll have to try to do it once again without five or six injured players which is actually not something new for us anymore. 

Mirko Milasevic, Vojvodina player: 
I expect this to be a hard game. We’ve already shown we can play against everyone in the league and in case our defense remains tough and we end up running the ball well in transition we might be able to reach a positive result. It’s always a pleasure to play in the city of handball.