CO Zagreb can be satisfied with the way they opened the new season. They have won two home matches in SEHA GSS league dominantly and have also defeated Celje Pivovarna Laško in the first round of EHF's Champions League.

 

Last year was Luka Stepančić's first in the senior handball. He got his chance as Kopljar left to PSG and used it the best way possible, played great in Champions League and won bronze on WC in Spain with the National team. This season he has to overtake the duty of leading young Zagreb's team through both, SEHA league and CL. He is an optimist: ''We are looking really good, have great experience from the last season and definitely want to achieve more. This is still a very young team and we are aware that there will be ups and downs but we have to do our best to be on top level for the most important matches.''

Although season started great for them with 3 wins in 3 matches, he knows that it is still hard to say if this team is better than the last season's: ''Špiler was very important player for us with his great quality and experience. Good thing this season is that we have a lot more players and we can keep higher rhytm through the whole match. We have also raised our agresiveness on a higher level because it's relly hard to play other Europe's strong teams in any other way. We have many great youngsters getting into the team and great atmosphere. I believe that matches will show how good we really are.''

The fact that Zagreb has more players this season will surely be important on the two hard 'battlegrounds'  they'll be playing on this season again, CL and SEHA: ''Champions League is really the best European handball can offer. Clubs are really strong and it's hard to beat anyone, especially in away matches. It's clear that Veszprem and Löwen are the best two teams in our group but I believe that we will show in upcoming matches that we can beat Motor and St.Petersburg as well as we won against Celje and that maybe we can even attack position 2 in the group.''

 

Luka Stepančić had his debut season last year and this one will be first on CO Zagreb's bench for Boris Dvoršek (he became coach for the last few rounds in SEHA and on its Final 4 in Skopje). He has also in his career worked with younger categories in Zagreb for many years and was Vladimir Canjuga's assistant in OG in London.

 

As Zagreb has many new young players in his roster, people are interested how will it all function: ''The most important question everyone is asking is are we strong enough. I would say that we are, especially in defense because all players who came can play it which was a handicap last year. We also have a lot more players, 20 players who I can count on which is very important too for the long season. These were also my first pre-season preparations with Zagreb and I'm pretty satisfied with it as we have played many important matches for us and they will surely mean a lot as the season will go. We have a lot defense variants but our main goal is to raise the tempo as high as possible. Attack has to do the most through the season I believe. We have a lot of spaces to be better in and I'm an optimist too.

Goals are also set: ''To go through in the CL to the Last 16 and to be on SEHA leagues Final 4. It will be hard but we believe in ourselves. We have very strong opponents in the CL and SEHA became a lot harder this season for us as our main opponents have reinforced much, mostly Vardar, Metalurg and Meshkov. But I would like to stress that I strongly believe in my team and in our young players. I know that if we'll work hard we'lll have much to say. We of course count on home trophies, in Croatia.''

In the next round of EHF's Champions League CO Zagreb will on Thursday (26.9.) play in Ukraine against Motor from Zaporozhye and then they will host Partizan in Zagreb on Sunday (29.9.).