Šuman: There will be new players in the BiH handball team

The senior men's handball team of BiH started with two losses in the qualifiers for the 2018 European Championship in Croatia.

In the first round, the chosen players of the new coach Bilal Šuman were defeated by Spain (21:30). We traveled to Valladolid with only one training session with the full squad, as the players had club commitments.

In the second match, Austria defeated us (22:23) in Skenderija, and after the match, the general impression was that we defeated ourselves. However, nothing is lost yet. Only a third of the qualifiers have been played, and there is still an opportunity to improve the situation for our team.

After the impressions settled and heads cooled, coach Bilal Šuman, in an interview for the official website of the Handball Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, analyzed what was done, announced upcoming actions, player changes...

– These two matches showed us where we are and what we need to do if we want to move forward, which is our common goal. In the first match against Spain, for 20 minutes it was very decent, and I am satisfied with that. In both matches, the defense was at a satisfactory level. The defense with one player less was excellent, the attack with one player less functioned quite well, and there were no technical errors.

We should not neglect the fact that we played with one player less for 20 minutes in both matches. In those circumstances, we did not allow the opponent to score an easy goal. So, we are left to conclude that in these two matches, our six-on-six attack play has not yet reached the level we want it to be – says Šuman, who has already analyzed both matches, especially the duel with Austria.