Dobele Coach: Three Goals Is Neither Much nor a Little

March 24, 2023

The decisive matches for spots in the BHL final four are still to be played. The quarter-final return matches will take place on Saturday. This will leave just four contenders for the champion title.

Dragūnas Klaipėda defeated ZRHK TENAX Dobele 24:21 in the first quarter-final match at home. Ahead of the second leg, the coaches of both teams say that the three-goal lead is small and there is no favourite team in this quarter-final.

Gintaras Cibulskis (coach, Dragūnas Klaipėda):
A three-goal lead is kind of small. On the other hand, if we had scored 8 or 10 goals more than the other team, it would interfere with the training process and the players would relax too much. Now we have an industrious mood in training. In the first game, we had several chances to win by a bigger margin. It’s a pity we did not take those chances. Dobele is now the favourite, as they will play at home. But there is no panic. We played better in the first game, we just did not take our chances. Dobele stood up to us, now we are going to stand up to Dobele.

Sandris Veršakovs (coach, ZRHK TENAX Dobele):
Three goals is neither much nor a little. It is not such a big margin that you will not be able to catch up. There have been games in my career when opponents with an 8 or 9 goal lead were outscored. However, we need the whole team to play well – the goalkeeper, defending and attacking players. If everything works well, you can score three goals in a few attacks. But it is possible that the opponents will also play well and get 3 goals ahead of us. We need to improve our realisation of the chances and we can expect to win by more than three goals. At home, we will have the support of the home crowd, which will be an advantage.

The match between ZRHK TENAX Dobele and Dragūnas will take place on 25 March at 4 pm in the Dobele sporthall.