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Chervar can't count on Mirkulovski, Gardent without Csaszar

PSG has arrived to Skoplje after they struggled against Minsk and worked wonders against Rennes. Metalurg had a lot of close home games against top clubs like Kielce and HSV in previous seasons and today they play another European giant

European Championship 2010 in Austria, the last tournament where Lino was in charge of Croatia. The preparations were made in Makarska and he said at the time that he 'found some reserve players' for his attempt at the title. It was the first major tournament where Jakov Gojun and Marko Kopljar played a bigger role.

Nobody believed that Igor Vori could become such a good player. Except Lino Červar, who picked him all the time in Italy and who made him one of the world's best pivot.

That was a short introduction to the match in which we will see Lino Cervar on one side and Vori, Kopljar and Gojun on the other.

Metalurg opened the European Champions in an unimpressive manner. They grafted and played strong defense in a game in which they conceded just 22 goals. In the end it was enough to defeat the Swiss champion Wacker in Thun 23:22. They also lost one of their best players - Filip Mirkulovski. He will miss the next game due to a one game red card ban, but he would have missed it either way because he needs to undergo surgery on his knee which will keep him from playing for 6-8 weeks. Metalurg will mostly rely on the trio Atman, Mojsovski and Vugrinec. They don't have a lot of options in their back line which means that this trio will play a lot.

- I have an idea who will replace Mirkulovski, but I think that we also need a little bit of mystery - said Lino, who has probably prepared a surprise for his ex-pupils, at least in defense.

- PSG is a team that can change the tempo. I know what they can do and we need to use our defense to stop them.In attack we need to be smart, careful and keep everything under control.

Pecakovic is one of the options for some minutes in the back line and Nikola Kedzo could also feature. He arrived this summer but hasn't been given an opportunity in the deciding minutes.

- Paris is a dream team and it is very inspiring to play against such a team - said Naumce Mojsovski.

- We need to be maximally active from the first to the last minute. If we lose we'll at least show that we have dignity and fighting spirit. We need to play it safe in defense, while in offense we need to play as a team and produce high efficiency shots. Of course, we can't allow a lot of turnovers.

The winger Gorgievski is also unavailable.

PSG arrived to Macedonia after they finally showed what they can do. It was their first great match of the season. They struggled in the Supercup finals, against Toulouse and at home against Chambery. They obviously had a point to prove against Rennes. They won 41-28 and Mikkel Hansen played his best game in six moths (11/11 shot efficiency). Vori scored 6 out of 6 attempts and Annonay, who replaced Sierra as the first goalkeeper, had 13 saves.

- For the first time in Champions League history two clubs from the same town take part in the tournament. That shows how much Macedonian handball progressed. We know Metalurg's strong points and I'm sure that Lino has prepared a trick or two - said Igro Vori upon arriving to Skoplje.

- I listened to him today and it's classic reversed psychology, but that's Lino. We have a lot of new players and you can't expect us to play as a team overnight. We have a lot of oscillations in our game, but I believe that we can play as good as we did against Cesson.

They played their first game in the Champions League against Dinamo Minsk. It was a match of two halves. At halftime they had 12-11, but fell behind by four goals in the second, came back and subsequently scored 22 to make the score 34-30. That is due to the oscillations in their game, especially in defense where they have the Croatian trio, Narcisse, Diaw and Hansen...

Today we won't see a lot of Gabor Cszaszar, who hasn't imposed himself in the French team as an important player, and the long term absentee Zachario N'Diaye. Gardent will most definitely play Narcisse from the beginning. He also has a lot of trust in Mladen Bojinovic.

We will rarely see Metalurg at a 53.5 margin, and I honestly don't recall the last time I saw such a margin in one of their European games. Even if they were playing vs Odema Zagreb this would be a bet to take, with all due respect to the team from the lower league. The Macedonians have played offensively strong teams in previous seasons as well, such as Kiel or Hamburg, and still managed to leave their opponents at 25-26 goals. PSG is no doubt a powerful team, but only on paper so far. They are not tuned in yet, and this margin is the consequence of victories vs Minsk(34-30) and Cesson (41-28). However, those games have no relevance for this one, and they played Minsk 12-11 in the first half too. The PSG under 28.5 option is very attractive, but I'll take a shot at the total under. We must keep in mind that Metalurg cannot count on Mirkulovski, who is one of their very important offensive players. Pavel Atman is to substitute him, but they have very few alternating options, and the last thing Cervar wants to do is have a chasing match with Abalo, Honrubia and the rest...