Clash of Kings in Barcelona

You know it wasn’t my intention to write a novel for my first blog, but I find I have a lot to say. How is that possible? I hear you all ask. You’re normally so quiet Tom.

Well you know during the entire summer, I and my colleagues in the EHF were debating how best to continue our cooperation. Experience has taught me one thing and that is to expect the unexpected.

So, you probably noticed that I wasn’t involved in any power rankings, I wrote no pieces, my twitter account (bar Olympics) has been relatively quiet, but in the back ground, waiting in the wings, I was watching the comings and goings, seeing who was where, who was in, who was out and of course drinking in the superb writing of Björn Pazen.

Every so often I even drifted off piste and read from other websites and blogs. Don’t tell my bosses please.

But through it all, I was putting together my own picture, my own thoughts. And for the record I totally disagree with the rankings published on the ehfCL.

Now I know that this “Power ranking” is an amalgamation of all the experts throughout Europe and they have their little biases. So the Hungarian guy is probably going to give Veszprem number 1 and Szeged number two and so on. The Balkan expert will bump Zagreb and Vardar a few points. Well you get the picture.

Kielce number one for me

Just remind me again, who made the FINAL4 last year.

Veszprem, Kiel, PSG and Kielce?

The Polish side are the champions. They are the ones everyone has to knock off the perch so they automatically get number 1 for me.

Why? Because they are number 1. Jurkiewicz is back, Bombac is the bomb and the Djukic boy on the right wing looks very tasty.

They have lost some, but they won without Buntic last FINAL4, and Zorman, albeit he has retired from Slovenia, looks the best in a long time. The karate kid Ivic takes the place of Sego and that is good business.

Veszprem: Well for god’s sake who did they not buy? With this team, they could enter another league somewhere else on the planet and still be left over with a world class team.

Their policy seems to be: “Buy everyone so that there is no one left for anyone else to buy.” Still they look formidable. The biggest issue for my pal “Sabate” is how you keep everyone happy. And we all know what happens to coaches when everyone wasn’t happy.

Snowballs chance in a microwave

Kiel: Top team, boasting Olympic champ GK and EURO champ GK. How can they possibly be considered as 10th place? Has the handball world gone completely crazy? Toft is back, missed all of last season. Wiencek came back and looks formidable. Legolas (sorry Nilsson) could be great.

Biggest mistake was letting Klein go, but they brought back Zeitzy and sometimes a hero is what the crowd need and those two players are steeped in the lore of Kiel.

PSG: Same as last year, but have offloaded some of the players not up to standard. They look lean, mean and the few buys are clever. Uwe, of course, and Nielsen from Berlin. Big boy, good defence player and strong on the line and Ante …

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