Any great champion will tell you that winning the championship is the easy part, defending your title is harder since everyone is gunning for you. This year every team will try to play their best against defending MOL League champion Nové Zámky.
The Slovak side is pretty much bringing back the same as last season with only a few changes. Robert Spisák who took over mid season is back for another ride. The club only lost three players, Jan Chovan, arguably the best goalie in the league, Richárd Hardi is with the MOL side DAB.Docler and Eric Weissmann. On the score sheet Weissmann might be the biggest loss however he ruffled some feathers in the playoff and was even scratched at one point during the championship series against Brasov.
Replacing Chavon will be Robin Blazicek who was signed from the Slovak extra league, backing up Blazicek will be last years number two Pavel Krajcovic.
The defensive unit that was lead by the likes of Vladimir Kames and Pavel Kowalczyk have been strengthened by the addition of Peter Huba from DAB.Docler. Nové Zámky last year tended to get involved in highscore back and forth games, look for Andrej Sucharda to step up to higher level compared to last season.
The forwards are the real strength of this team, yes Weissmann left and Marek Uram is a year older but the club did sign Tomas Chernko and Radoslav Kropac from the top Slovak league and Juraj Faith from Miskolc. Peter Polcik came on strong towards the end of the year and the playoffs after almost never playing at the start of the season, the coaching change was great for him. A number of other players finished last season strong such as Erik Caladi, Martin Frolik, Albin Podstavek and Lubomir Hurtaj once he came over from DAB.Docler at mid season. The veteran Mirsolav Stafenka will be slowly sliding into the background as this season he is taking more of a player/coach role.
One thing that will be interesting to see is how Nové Zámky reacts once the games start to stack up in the legs, this season the management has decided to also try to move up to the Slovak 2nd division after using the 3rd division last year for the reserve team.
Photo: László Mudra