One of the players fitting right into it is young centre back Mia Svele. Going into her second year at Nykøbing, Svele took all the opportunities she was given this season and proved her quality. At the end of the season, Svele is returning to EHF Champions League play-offs participant Storhamar Handball Elite, the club she came from in 2020.
“A trophy to end my story with Nykøbing would be amazing. I have so many beautiful memories from the last three years, and many friends. If we manage to win the European League, it will show how strong we are as a team,” says Svele.
It was not all sunshine and rainbows for Svele and Nykøbing at the start of the season. After two qualification rounds and getting to the group phase, they started with two straight defeats. However, even though many thought all was lost, the Danish team believed they could do much more. And they did.
“I am very happy and proud about our season. I couldn't even dream about the EHF Finals when we played the first round of qualifications in October. And after those two defeats, I was just thinking about how I wanted to end it in the best possible way, to play as best we could, even if we must say goodbye to the competition,” says the 22-year-old centre back, marking her fourth year in the EHF's second-tier competition.
“Suddenly, we started to win and had a great chance to progress further and then fight for a spot in Graz.”
Losing to DVSC Schaeffler and Sola HK in the group phase was an additional incentive for every player in Nykøbing, according to Svele. And it transferred to the second leg quarter-final match as they overcame a three-goal deficit against SCM Ramnicu Valcea and convincingly won 38:29 (67:61 on aggregate).
“Ah yes, I was really mad because we did not lose by much and I thought to myself why we didn't score two or three goals more, what could we do to be better? We all talked to each other and agreed we could learn from those two games and turn our heads in the right direction. To make the dream come true. And it did,” Svele adds.
