Norway and South Korea want to learn from each other
Norway and South Korea want to learn from each other
The handball federations of Norway and South Korea have made an official agreement for their respective women´s national teams to train together and play regular test matches against each other with mutual learning and inspiration as the purpose.
Norway´s national coach Thorir Hergeirsson expects a lot from this new arrangement.
"Every time we meet South Korea at World Championships or Olympics, we have a lot of trouble playing against them due to their way of playing which is so different from the way our usual opponents play.
"Therefore we expect to learn a lot from them this way, where we are not only going to play against them, but also to train with them.
"The plan is to hold one mutual training camp every year – they visit us this year, we visit them in 2014, they come here in 2015 and so on," Thorir Hergeirsson told eurohandball.com.
Earlier he has stated that Norway may need to practice a more offensive kind of defence in future due to a change in types of players, and he expects himself and his players to learn a lot about that aspect in particular from working with the South Koreans.
"We launched our more aggressive way of defending in the Golden League in France recently, and we are going to develop that part of our play further."
The new cooperation will take place from 15 to 21 April, with Oslo and Gjøvik being the venues in which in which the two friendly matches on 20 and 21 will be played.
The Norwegian players, who play abroad, will not be available this time due to championship play-offs in their respective leagues, but that does not bother Hergeirsson.
"That gives us the opportunity to test some other players who need international match praxis.
"We have quite a lot of matches during the season, and we are going to use those to find out what players we want to count on for the World Championship in Serbia in December," Thorir Hergeirsson explained.
As the defending champions Norway are already qualified for the final tournament.
However, just ahead of the event in Serbia lie the first and the second round of the qualification for the Women's EHF EURO 2014 in Serbia and Hungary, for which Norway will take to the court between 23 and 27 October 2013.
The squad for the preparation week with South Korea
Silje Solberg (Stabæk Håndball) Stine Lidén (Storhamar IF) Emily S. Sando (Flint Tønsberg Handball) Sanna Solberg (Stabæk Håndball) Linn Gossé (Tertnes Elite) Thea Mørk (Larvik HK) Marid Molid (Levanger HK) Stine Bredal Oftedal (Stabæk Håndball) Ida Alstad (Byåsen Elite) Karoline Dyre Breivang (Larvik HK) Kristine Lunde-Borgersen (Våg Vipers) Anja Edin (Larvik HK) Veronika Kristiansen (Glassverket IF) Betina Riegelhuth (Storhamar IF) Linn Jørum Sulland (Larvik HK) Linn Kristin Riegelhuth Koren (Larvik HK) Maja Jacobsen (Storhamar IF) Stine Skogrand (Tertnes Elite) Lise Løke (Storhamar IF) Susann Iren Hall (Våg Vipers)
Only 16 out of those 20 players will be nominated for the friendlies, though. Those 16 will be picked on April 16.
