The fact that the Estonians posed such a high hurdle in the penultimate qualifying round for the 2023 World Cup in Sweden and Poland did not come as a surprise to the ÖHB players. “We have a completely new team. It was to be expected that it wouldn’t work from the start,” said captain Nikola Bilyk, who was the second-best ÖHB scorer with eight goals behind Tobias Wagner (9). Because of the failures of Lukas Hutecek, Janko Bozovic, Gerald Zeiner or the Hermann brothers Max and Alex, team boss Ales Pajovic had called up several inexperienced players. The changed ÖHB selection, in which debutant Moritz Mittendorfer scored six times, initially had problems in defense and was even 6:11 behind after a quarter of an hour. Only at the break (15:16) did Austria fight back. “The boys have settled in well,” said Pajovic. In the second leg, an increase is required. In the last qualifying round, Iceland is a much more difficult opponent.
Source: Nachrichten
