The third round of teams, which will participate in the NLB League, is lunched today. Here we publish the preview for Zagreb, Cibona, Zadar and Split.
ZAGREB
Nikola Brainović, vice-president of Zagreb: »We started the new three year period. The team is currently very young but we do expect players will grow in the future and reach for the top level. Their first goal set by the club is to achieve the 50 % efficiency in NLB League and one final in the national competitions. Therefore nobody will say any more we are not ambitious. Our main goal is to make young players ready for the top level so we will be also able to earn some money with transfers. Namely, it is very difficult to lean only on sponsors especially when we are not very often on television. Therefore we need finances to buy one or two quality players who would help our ones reaching better results.«
Zdravko Radulović, the head-coach of Zagreb: »We were probably the last ones to finish the previous season and the first ones to start the new one. I do hope this will give some results. We brought four new players, Nešović, Kovačević, Marić and Rubin, and I expect they will give us additional quality. I can not say we will go through the season without ups and downs. But all my players want to prove themselves, nobody likes suffering difficult defeats. Finally we have good players on all positions, we are as strong under the basket as with our outside line. Broyles is also in a good shape and this means a lot to us.«
SPLIT
After not participating in the regional league in the 2005/06 season, Split assured the place in it by finishing third in the national championship. But after the season the team faced changes on the roster again, besides Curtis Stinson, Otis Hill, Hrvoje Perić, Mateo Kedžo and Franko Kaštropil mostly young players will be in the line-up. It was the difficult financial situation that resulted in signing only few new players. Split brought back the ex-juniors of the club Nikola Gaurina and Jure Lozančić, Damjan Rudež is coming back from Belgium, Marko Car also joined the team. The rest of the team is formed by three players who made their debut in the team in the previous season, Ivan Siriščević, Marin Han and Ante Delaš, juniors Mario Delaš and Josip Sobin. The new head-coach is the ex-member of the national team Veljko Mršić who is »assisted« by two great names of the Croatian basketball, Petar Skansi and Slavko Trninić.
Petar Skansi, the sport's director of Split: »From the team that was once marked as the loosing team, and that was not far from the truth, we tried to form the team with a winning mentality.«
Dino Rađa, the president of Split: »We started the difficult process of forming the team from the very beginning that means with our young players and therefore a lot of effort was already being given. But we have to be patient because result will not be seen so soon. I wish fans will help us and support us on this way.«
Veljko Mršić, the head-coach of Split: »At the end we added Stinson and Hill as the last ones, Perić has just returned from the national team and therefore we didn't have much time to make our system already work as we wanted. But I do believe in those guys and that we will be a tougher nut with every month that will pass.«
CIBONA
Dražen Anzulović, the head-coach of Cibona: »Last season when Scoonie Penn was still playing for us we possesed more individual quality then we do now. Therefore we will have to play differently in the upcoming season, the team's play will have to be reinforced. I do have a vision but we will not know until the end of the season whethere I am on the right way. I also have to say I am pretty unsatisfied with how the team looks a the beginning of the season, here I mean mostly the newcomers. Nobody amonge them gives at least half I expected.«
ZADAR
Kristijan Magaš, the president of Zadar: »We decided to form a team that is not so expensive as the one in the previous season but if we look from another aspect it also possesses more quality. Our goals are the same, the final of the national championship and of the national cup, while in the NLB League we are not so ambitious. We tend to finish among six best clubs in the league and therefore assure a place in ULEB Cup. We will try to qualify for the Euroleague in the future but for the upcoming season our main goal is to stabilize the finances of the club and to make young players ready for big games. We are still building the new Sport's Hall and that is also one of the reasons we still aren't ready to participate in Euroleague. It is more real to plan this for the future.«
Petar Popović, the head-coach of Zadar: »We lost six players from the previous season while we signed only two new ones, Carl English and Rok Stipčević, who came back from a loan in Borik. But this does not mean Zadar is not strong. Our reality is a place in the middle of the NLB standing. We do have a team that is able to defeat any opponent, especially in Jazine, and if we will get a chance we will also try to reach for the play-off. Our friendly games already proved we will do everything to make our young players grow, players like Jure Lalić, Hrvoje Oršulić, Pankracije Barać and Rok Stipčević. In such a strong league, like NLB League is, they will definitely gain experiences.«
RSS 
E-mail 
Twitter 
Facebook 
