After Tatran managed to win the first match of the season against Vardar 1961, the ‘Red & Blacks’ will have a chance to take revenge on Friday (18.00 CET) with Slovak champions coming to visit.

Vardar has, in the meantime managed to recover from that opening loss defeating Partizan 31:26 at home, in an amazing atmosphere. Tatran Presov however appears to be in a good shape in the beginning of the second part of the season and this is surely going to be a really good duel. In case they manage to win in the end, Tatran will put an end to a ten-year-long winning drought in away matches in Skopje. A win by over five goals would, on the other hand, help Macedonians overtake the top spot in group B after that 27:23 loss in Slovakia to start the season.

And here is what coaches and players of both teams had to say prior to the game in Skopje on Friday.

Vlado Nedanovski, Vardar 1961 coach:
I feel like we’re ready for the match on Friday. Today we’ll analyze them a bit more and I can say we are going for a win in this one. Securing the top spot in the group remains our priority. I’m sure we’ll in this one manage to deliver a much better performance although we are dealing with some injuries at the moment. That is however not an excuse – we have a big roster full of players who are visibly improving on a daily basis.

Goce Georgievski, Vardar 1961 player:
Winning the match by five or more goals will be our priority in this one as that would bring us a step closer to the top spot in our group. We didn’t really have much time to prepare for our first match of the season against Tatran but I assure you we’ll do our share of preparations for this one. I’m expecting us to play better, but we also have to be aware of the fact that Tatran has a really good, well-balanced team and it won’t be easy. Goal is to start well on the defensive side of the court as that fuels your confidence and makes you play better in attack as well. That’s how you win games and in case we manage to pull that off – I’m confident we’ll celebrate in the end.

Marek Gernat, Tatran Presov coach:
I’m expecting a completely different match from the one we’ve played in Presov. The home team will prepare for us, I’m sure about that. We have some tough games behind us, played in a really tight schedule but of course we’ll do our best to prepare for Vardar and do everything we can in that one.

Nikola Ivanovic, Tatran Presov player:
We are going to Skopje, aiming to win the match. Goal is to book a place on the final tournament this season and we’ll try to deliver the best possible performance. In case we manage to repeat the same outing as in our first game against Vardar 1961 this season, we might have a chance.