Saturday evening (20.00 CET) is in SEHA Gazprom League reserved for a duel between PPD Zagreb and Eurofarm Pelister in Sutinska vrela. In their premier regional league appearances of the season both teams managed to secure full bags – PPD Zagreb a few days ago also at home versus Tatran Presov and Eurofarm Pelister back in December in Bitola against Metaloplastika. They also met a little over a week ago in a friendly match with Zagreb ‘Lions’ celebrating a win. However, at the time both teams lacked some of their key players due to their national team obligations and it’s clear this one will have a much more competitive character. Last season PPD Zagreb managed to defeat Macedonians both home and away by one goal difference (24:23, 27:28) which is yet another reason for you not to miss what has a potential to be an amazingly narrow clash between two sides looking to build atmosphere with three new points ahead of challenges waiting for them in European competitions.

Match will be broadcasted on Arena Sport channels, MRT (Macedonia) and Sport Klub (Poland).

Vlado Sola, PPD Zagreb coach:

Match on Saturday will, in my opinion, be completely different than the one we’ve played against them in the preparation period. We’ve delivered a solid performance versus Tatran a few days ago and we must keep up the good work, improving and working on our mistakes. Both teams have certain ambitions for the season but in case we manage to do everything we’ve agreed on I believe we’ll come out victorious. We might make some changes to our roster with Mrakovcic and Bozic Pavletic returning from injuries but I’ll decide everything before the game. Goal is to give each one of our players some playing time in order for them to catch the right form with busy February ahead of us.

Ivan Laljek, PPD Zagreb player:

This will be a completely different match. We’re catching the right rhythm, we’ve managed to reach victories in final few matches, delivered a good outing versus Tatran and goal will definitely be to keep up the good tempo and of course keep the winning streak alive.

Zeljko Babic, Eurofarm Pelister coach:

We're always motivated against Zagreb. They have a really good team, we know them quite well and I expect we'll use the match to prepare in the best possible way for duel against Tatabanya. I'm honestly happy SEHA is back and I'm looking forward to this match. Some of our players won't be ready for this one unfortunately and they'll stay here in Bitola but despite of that I believe players that will be available to deliver a solid display. We'll do our best to adjust our game to those absences and make them visible as little as possible.

Goce Ojleski, Eurofarm Pelister player:

We went through a quality preparation period and we even played a test match versus Zagreb. I think we are in good form at the moment with an exception of a few of our players who are dealing with injuries. We know what kind of an opponent we’re facing on Saturday night, a team which is a constant member of SEHA F4 tournaments. It will be difficult but we’ll do our best to win. Eventual success in Zagreb would definitely be a confidence booster for us ahead of the second part of the season.