Three months after the thriller match with Croatia and the bronze medal at the World Championship in France, Slovenia received a lesson from Germany (23:32) in front of a crowd of 10.000 fans at the Stožice Arena. The physically superior Germans once again confirmed that they are "poisonous" to the Slovenian team, which is still waiting to register a win over the "German machine". Luckily the match against Germany does not decide anything and because of that it will be easier to recover from the loss.

No success without real fouls
"In the first 20 minutes we didn’t make any saves, we didn’t even make any fouls. Our defenders, like Mačkovšek, Blagotinšek and Poteko, seemed to be in replay mode against the Germans. We tried with Henigman on the outside line, but it didn’t work. We missed a lot of clear cut chances to score. Our goalkeepers didn’t save anything, but on the other side Andreas Wolff was saving clear goal chances. We did start showing signs of life in the second half, but the goal difference was already too big. I’m disappointed," was Vujović’s analysis of his team’s soft approach to the match.

We have a lot of "green" players
Vujović warned that the medal from the World Championship should not overwhelm us. "When we won the medal, I said that we must not think that we’re better from the Danes, the Germans, Swedes or Spaniards, who did not win it. We are very proud of the medal, but it also comes with a responsibility. We have a lot of players who are still 'green', who lack experience, despite the fact that some of them, like for example Blaž Blagotinšek, play for big European clubs. But he’s still far from being a serious player, one we can’t count on," was Vujović’s critical remark.

Aleš Vozel, MMC; translated by K. J.