Manci-Micevic: “We took Dinamo very seriously, especially after seeing how good they were able to play against favored opponents“

Borna Manci Micevic

Nexe - Dinamo 27:19 (14:12)

(Tomic 6, Barisic Jaman 6, Leban 4 / Slavuljica 4, Zujovic 3, Pilipovic 3)

Hrvoje Horvat, NEXE coach:
Match in Pancevo served as a good warning for us. However, we were also familiar with the fact Dinamo are dealing with certain injuries at the moment. I believe we’ve played a quality second half and I’m really satisfied with both the result and work we put in today. There is however not much time for celebration as we already on Wednesday have a Croatian Cup match and after that a very important EHF Cup match against German Göppingen.

Borna Manci-Micevic, NEXE player:
We took Dinamo very seriously, especially after seeing how good they were able to play against favored opponents like Vardar, Tatran and PPD Zagreb. They looked really good during the opening 15 minutes tonight and we were on the other side waiting for our chance. In the second half we took the chance we were given, played quite well and celebrated in the end.

Ivan Petkovic, Dinamo coach:
I’m not looking for an alibi but we really have a lot of problems with injuries at the moment. In the second half I feel like we weren’t even out there and on the other hand Perica Lelic had an excellent night stopping around 50% of our shots. This Wednesday – Sunday rhythm is causing us a lot of problems at the moment but despite of that I feel like SEHA Gazprom League was a huge experience for us. I wish NEXE all the best.

Milan Mirkovic, Dinamo player:
We’re dealing with some injuries and that’s why we’re not able to perform on the highest possible level in this kind of rhythm. We were able to stay in it for about 15 minutes today but after that NEXE took over playing excellent handball. We tried to get back of course but couldn’t make it. Looking back at it now, I think we’ve had a fine SEHA season in general.