“We’re going to Barcelona to take something with us”

The first stop is none other than FC Barcelona. The team, against which coach Bennet Wiegert and Co. recently prevailed in the semi-finals of the Maschineseeker EHF Champions League in the last second and which has already won the competition twelve times, will once again offer an enormous range of performances this year.

“This is a team with a lot of individual quality. But we are used to that from the everyday operations of the Bundesliga. That’s why we won’t do anything differently in pre-season,” said the coach ahead of the game at the Palau Blaugrana on Thursday (20:45 CET).

With goalkeeper Gonzalo Perez de Vargas, defensive specialist Petrus and backcourt shooter Melvyn Richardsson, the Catalans have said goodbye to several key players before the season and currently have to do without their star player Dika Mem due to injury. However, SCM is aware that the Spanish champions should not be underestimated.

“There was a big upheaval, but it is quite normal in terms of age that the next generation takes over at some point. I don’t think they have deteriorated massively and they won’t change anything about their goals. This team will play for all titles every year. That’s their mindset,” says Wiegert.

SCM has won three of the last five meetings – but has never been able to score points at Barca. “It’s incredibly difficult to win there and I also know about the statistics that SCM has never managed to do that before,” says Tim Zechel, but adds: “But we’re going there to take something with us and we’ll do everything we can to make that happen.”

After the game in Barcelona, SCM will fly to Nuremberg on Friday. From there, the journey continues to HC Erlangen, where the Daikin Handball Bundesliga match with the Franconians will kick off on Saturday at 6 p.m.