Michalovce fell in the final, Dunajská Streda unexpectedly celebrates the premier title. There were strong emotions and tears of happiness – Michalovce fell in the final, Dunajská Streda unexpectedly celebrates its first title. There were strong emotions and tears of happiness

The handball players of HC DAC Dunajská Streda won the first title of Slovak champions. In Sunday’s decisive final playoff match, they defeated Iuventa Michalovce 23:22 and after two silver bars, they started the desired championship celebrations.

Photo: SITA/AP, Edmund Örzsik

The handball players of HC DAC Dunajská Streda won the first title of Slovak champions.

The leader of the team from Žitné ostrov was the Slovak representative Réka Bíziková, who was inspired by Saturday’s triumph of the handball players of MŠK Považská Bystrica over the long-time hegemon Tatran Prešov.

According to the coach of Juventus Petar Kostka and the best scorer Lívia Klučková, one of the decisive factors was the difference in the width of the squad.

The beginning of the duel belonged to the home players, who built up a four-goal lead. DAC was also held by goalkeeper Noemi Magerová with several great saves.

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After a quarter of an hour, the game began to level out, and five minutes before the end of the first half, the Michalovcan women took the lead for the first time. During the next course of the game, however, they were constantly closing in on the opponents’ lead. In addition, Dunajská Streda was driven forward by a packed hall, which was one of the decisive factors.

“The home environment played an important role. Dunajská Streda played only two of the three final duels at home. With such a balanced quality of opponents, this is decisive.

We lost easy points during the season, for example with Kežmark, which we missed in the end.

We traveled more to our opponents in the playoffs than we played at home,” said Juventus coach Peter Kostka, who sportily acknowledged the strength of the home selection:

“Congratulations to them, they deserved it because ultimately they were ahead of us during the season. They were better in terms of detail and frame width.”

The seven-goal Czech Eliška Desortová led the Dunajskostredčan women to win their first title, who did not hide her emotions after the final whistle:

“It’s amazing, I don’t even realize it now. Maybe it will come to me in a few days. I think it was a deserved victory. The title is the icing on the cake for the whole season.”

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Emotions ran high at the beginning of the celebrations even with Réka Bíziková, who was guarded by the visiting players on the wing in the first half, but already at the beginning of the second part of the game, she made her mark four times in a row.

“For me it’s something incredible. I didn’t win for many years, it was still only second place. Now we have finally won the title, I am very happy. A lot of things came to mind after the match, I felt emotions and couldn’t stand without tears,” said the thirty-one-year-old Slovakian representative.

The defending champions were led by Lívia Klučková in the decisive battle for the twelfth league title in the series. Even her eight goals were not enough to complete a dozen titles in a row. The offensive all-rounder considered the difference in the width of the squad of both teams to be one of the decisive factors:

“We didn’t have the opportunity to change players, Dunajská Streda had doubled or machined posts. I basically played everywhere, I alternated on the left, right, on the pivot, it’s simply not possible to play 50-60 minutes in matches in which you leave both physically and also the head.

I don’t take it as a loss. We lost by one goal to the favored Dunajská Streda, which has a full squad. I definitely consider us moral winners this season. I believe that next year we will meet a successful end for us.”

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For Bíziková, Saturday’s triumph of MŠK Považská Bystrica in the men’s extra league was a prime example of how to defeat a long-time hegemon. For the sixteenth time in a row, they did not allow Tatrana Prešov to succeed.

Just 24 hours after the men’s dominance ended, Iuventa fell after a streak of eleven titles. “In the Czech Republic, Banník Most did not win, Považská Bystrica and Tatran won on Saturday, so I thought it was our turn,” added Bíziková.