15 December 2008
Lokomotiva will have busy schedule this week. On Wednesday at 19:00 team from Zagreb will welcome Budućnost T-Mobile in “Dom sportova“. On Saturday at 18:00 hours, Lokomotiva will face Hypo in “Kutija šibica“.
Klaudija Bubalo highly appreciates Montenegrin team:
“Budućnost T-Mobile is strong team with great quality. On other side we will play without our two players who participated EC in Macedonia (Nikica Pušić and Jelena Grubišić). Despite that, I expect from my team to show good play and great fighting spirit. I find Budućnost T-Mobile as favourite in this match.“
Two Croatian national team players are not only ones who will miss Wednesdays match. Lokomotiva will have to play without their first pivot player Maja Čop-Andesilić who is injured:
“Nikica and Jelena really deserved break after many matches played on European Championship. Maja is on therapy right now and her recovery is expected in one month.“
Good news for Lokomotiva is comeback of Jelena Grubišić, who demonstrated great form on EC in Macedonia. Her contract with Lokomotiva expires this season and many top European clubs want to sign her:
“Jelena's comeback is really good news for us. Regarding the future, Lokomotiva has great desire to prolong the contract with Jelena. We are prepared to do everything what it takes to convince Jelena to stay in Lokomotiva.”
Croatian handball legend believes in bright future of regional league:
“WRHL brings many quality matches. It is great thing for handball. This is only first season and I expect very soon full halls with many spectators enjoying women’s handball matches – like it was not so long ago.“
Despite the small budget, Lokomotiva continues with great results. Although only professional Croatian club Podravka Vegeta has much better financial background, Lokomotiva won Croatian Championship title in 2004 and Croatian Cup title in 2005 and 2007.
“Lokomotiva comes from capital city of Croatia which has many sports clubs. City Zagreb gives the money to all of them, so in the end women’s handball get only crumbs. It is not sufficient for having constant results. Podravka Vegeta has much bigger budget and every year they buy our players. But we are searching for sponsor and with help of the city I am convinced things will get better in following seasons.“
Lokomotiva has great history and has always been famous upon great handball school:
“Exactly. I also started my handball carrier in Lokomotiva as a very young girl. Our club was always famous upon great handball school, and it is still. No less then eight players or ex-players of Lokomotiva have played for Croatian national team on EC in Macedonia (Pušić, Grubišić, Arslanagić, Penezić, Lovrić, Horvat, Golubić and Jelčić). Now, we have 250 girls divided in groups 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998. They all compete in organised leagues. So, we continue with our work.“
Bubalo reveals plans for this season:
“In Croatian Championship we are on second place and we plan to hold that position. Our goal in WRHL is to play good. We want our players to gain experience by playing many quality matches.“
PHOTO: www.hrs.hr (Klaudija Bubalo and Nataša Kolega)