Decision day in Zagreb as Meshkov come to visit

William Accambray

Zagreb will on Monday evening (18.00 CET) host a match which will decide everything in terms of who will finish the group phase of the season on second place in Group B and book a quarter-finals spot for themselves and who will have to take the longer road on their way to SEHA final tournament with home team PPD Zagreb welcoming Meshkov Brest. 

Duels between these two teams are always intense and narrow and when we look at all that’s at stake in this one we can without doubt say we’re all up to a great one. Teams are in good mood – Meshkov after an important domestic championship win over SKA and PPD Zagreb after a very good performance against Veszprem at home on Saturday.

In their premier encounter this season Belarusians celebrated a 33:29 win at home and it will be interesting to see whether coach Vujovic and his guys can take revenge in what will be the key SEHA group phase match for both sides or will Meshkov once again manage to come out on top against the ”Lions”.

Veselin Vujovic, PPD Zagreb coach:
Important match for us of course, it definitely won't be an easy one but we'll do our best to come out on top. I'd like to invite fans to come and support us the way they did yesterday because that would be a huge boost for us as it always is. 

Damir Bicanic, PPD Zagreb player: 
I think we should focus on defense in the match against Meshkov because that’s the way to win tough matches like that one will most definitely be. Our main goal should be not allow them to score a lot of easy goals because I believe we’ll have a better shot at winning the match if we manage to make it a low-scoring one. 

Raul Alonso, Meshkov Brest coach:
I am very happy with the way we played against SKA, guys really did a great job. We didn’t have much time to prepare for that one but we did our best. Goal in Zagreb on the other hand is to book a direct SEHA quarter-finals ticket for ourselves. We are in good shape now and I think it will be important to see if Croatian players will manage to get ready for this one after a tough match against Veszprem. 

Alexander Shkurinskiy, Meshkov Brest player:
Tough one is ahead of us. We won’t have much time to prepare for it because we’ve on Saturday played an important match in Minsk against SKA. We know we’ve earlier this season managed to defeat Zagreb at home but this match will be completely different. We are motivated to win this one because we want to take second place in this group. We hope luck will be on our side.