HBL start: “The truth lies in Lemgo”

Five weeks of preparation lie behind coach Bennet Wiegert’s team. Including a tight schedule, nine test matches against national and international clubs, all of which were successfully contested, and overall high physical demands. According to the coach, SCM has mastered the high workload convincingly: “The boys did well. Nevertheless, I can’t say where we are right now. Probably no coach can do that at the moment, even if the first teams have already played.”

For the league opener, the Champions League winner will visit TBV Lemgo Lippe – and thus the club against which the Magdeburgers competed only two weeks ago in the Wartburg Cup and won 34-28. Nevertheless, SCM is warned and knows about the strengths of last year’s eighth. “It’s going to be a damn difficult away game. That’s the Bundesliga, that’s what we have to measure ourselves against. It will be a real rehearsal right at the beginning of the season,” said Wiegert. “They’re going very well and we’ll see how well prepared we are. The truth lies in Lemgo.”

In the match in Lipperland, new signings Matej Mandic, Elvar Örn Jonsson and Sebastian Barthold will also make their first competitive debut for Magdeburg. For Mandic, it is even the first game in the SCM jersey. “I don’t have a stomachache to use him. Nevertheless, the roles in the goalkeeper duo with Sergey Hernandez are clearly distributed,” said Wiegert, who was only able to welcome Mandic to the team on Monday.

Overall, he assesses his squad as even higher quality than in the previous season. “I believe that we have strengthened ourselves up front and in width,” said the coach. “Everything that happened so far no longer counts. It’s starting again and we have to prove ourselves again. Of course, we want to start as successfully as possible. The goals are not getting any smaller.”