Dinamo seeking another stunner to welcome SEHA League to Pancevo
Serbian vice-champions Dinamo will on Wednesday (20.45 CET) welcome Metalurg in SEHA - Gazprom League premier night in Pancevo. Match is coming after a stunner Ivan Petkovic and his players made against Vojvodina which will surely boost them with self-confidence ahead of the clash against Lino Cervar and his roster full of perspective young players. Although League’s rookies from Pancevo were ahead of the beginning of League’s seventh edition given a ‘underdog’ title for the season, their victory against Vojvodina (29:24) proved that youngsters like Stojanovic, Banduka and Slavuljica can, when combined with experienced players like Zujovic, Pilipovic, Radanovic and Petrovic, hurt anyone despite of the fact their team appears to be a lot weaker.
Pancevo did not manage to get through EHF Cup Round 1 falling short against Portuguese side Benfica without key players like Radanovic and Petrovic which did not ruin the atmosphere in the team which can’t wait to bring SEHA League to their city. Metalurg on the other side opened the season with an expected loss against Vardar with coach Lino Cervar still struggling to make all the little pieces in a team full our newcomers and rookies work in the best possible way.
Ivan Petkovic, Dinamo Pancevo coach:
I would like to use this opportunity to once again congratulate my players on an outstanding outing versus Vojvodina. They are clearly not in good shape at the moment and we were able to use it. I feel like that was a historical win for us as we were really good in that match, in many aspects of the game. After that we’ve had an exhausting trip to Lisbon but we will once again give our best against Metalurg. They are a quality team with CL experience behind them and ‘Mr. Coach’ Lino Cervar on their bench. I can promise my players will give their best to get ready for the duel. We won’t have favorite role burden on our shoulders in any SEHA - Gazprom League match this season but we will try to maximize the amount of minutes in which we’re playing good handball. We hae a young roster and are at the moment dealing with some injuries which means it is still not clear who will play on Wednesday but despite of that I’d like to invite our fans to come and support us.
Milos Barudzic, Dinamo Pancevo player:
Metalurg have a very strong team. They are rejuvenated but led by amazing coach Lino Cervar. I think that we can make a surprise like in Novi Sad. I see SEHA - Gazprom League as a perfect chance for us to prove ourselves in matches against better teams. Such experience can only help each one of our players in our future careers.
Lino Cervar, Metalurg coach:
We’ve committed too many technical mistakes versus Vardar and that will have to get a lot better in case we want to achieve a positive result against Pancevo. Despite of the defeat I saw some good things. We have the youngest team in the League and that’s why we must use each match to gather experience and develop. They’ve on the other side managed to win their premier SEHA match and we know they are a good team but our goal remains to play best handball we can and hope it brings us a positive result in the end.
Filip Kuzmanovski, Metalurg player:
SEHA - Gazprom League is very important for us in terms of gathering experience from playing against quality teams. I expect us to play better against Pancevo than we did against Vardar. We have many youngsters in our roster which means it will take some time for everything to start functioning properly. Hopefully, we’ll manage to prove our worth against Pancevo fighting hard from the first until very last moment of the match.
Match will be broadcasted on EHF TV, Arena Sport channels, Sport TV (Slovenia) and MRT (Macedonia).