LINZ. When the new handball season kicks off today with the home game of HC Linz AG against Schwaz (6.30 p.m. live on laola1.tv), his work has long since been done: sports director Klemens Kainmüller could sit back and relax in the game of the seven-time champion. Anyone who knows the club veteran knows, however, that the 42-year-old lives too much for that. In his first year as head of sport in Linz, he achieved something remarkable: HC Linz did not record a single departure during this summer break. Not only were top legionnaires like Lucijan Fizuleto, Dejan Babic and Tobias Cvetko kept in the club, the team was also strengthened with the returnees Alex Hermann and Daniel Röthig.
When asked when HC Linz last had a summer break without a departure, Kainmüller declined after a moment’s thought: “It’s hard to say, but that hasn’t been the case for a long, long time,” said the club’s former playmaker.
The fact is that the past few years have been characterized more by upheavals than by continuity. Against this background, the past season, in which Linz surprisingly reached the league semi-finals, offered Kainmüller an opportunity. “You could see that we have a functioning team – and you should try to stabilize what you have. Now we want to go one step further,” says Kainmüller, whose goal is to make the team a fixed part of the top league again .
Linz quartet missing injured
Despite the continuity and the additions, the lack of breadth of the Linz squad is likely to remain its greatest shortcoming. The coming weeks will already be an endurance test. Since the club is returning to the European Cup this year after twelve years – on September 10 (home game) and September 17 it will be against the Bosnian Cup winner Izvidac – “English weeks” are on the schedule of the HC, who is then challenged during the week in the league in Bärnbach (September 7th) and Hard (September 13th).
Four players were injured at the start of the season in Linz: Max Hermann, Sinisa Sironjic, Leon Ghent and Artan Selmani. Further reinforcements are not planned and would also be difficult to manage financially, says Kainmüller: “We have to bite through that now.” (pue)
Source: Nachrichten
