Resovia in the fifth match in Kedzierzyn-Koźle beated local ZAKSA and defended Polish champion title. – I couldn’t be happier – said Paul Lotman. – Our team is amazing, we create a team we should keep – he added.
It had to be a great feeling to defend the Polish champion title.
Paul Lotman: Yeah, I couldn’t be happier! It’s a great feeling and a fantastic victory of our team. What we have done here in Kędzierzyn-Koźle, with this fans, it’s really incredible. I’m thirlled!
Didn’t you be a little afraid that after Sunday’s lostone the week it won’t be enough to preprare properly for this match?
– I think a week is perfect time to prepare. We knew that the pressure will be on their side that they will want to perform well at home, in front of their supporters. I’m glad that after the second set, in which we played terrible, we re-focused and played well for the rest of the match. That says a lot about our team. It’s something special, amazing. We create a team which should be keeped for next season and I hope that for next year will as many guys as possible and we’ll be more successful.
You said that the second set was terrible. After the first one no one expected that, what happened to you?
– Well, first set could finish differently. But we fought, the result was around the tie, we didn’t skip and when we had the chance, we grabed it. In the end they’ve mistaken a few times and we were strong, focused. Winning in the first set was something huge and I think after that we were a little to much relaxed. We tried to fight, but it didn’t work out but in the third part we started play well again. You could see the aggression, fight in our game what makes me very happy.
After Sunday’s lost Jochen Schöps said that you need to regain your team spirit. You did it.
– Yes, definitely. After such a poor match in Rzeszów I think we were pretty easy to get back into the game. We had to move on, to change something as soon as possible. We knew that we didn’t play well and started this game with the attitude that we have something to prove. We wanted to finish the season at home, in Rzeszów, we didn’t do this, but we had a chance to win in Kędzierzyn-Koźle and we used it.
The title was your main goal, I guess, especially that was your last chance to get any trophy this season.
– Definitely. To defend the title was very important to us. In other tournaments or competitions we didn’t cope best, some goals we lost, so the more I am happy that we finished the season in good style with PlusLiga’s gold.
This year it was harder to win gold medals in the Polish Championship. Generally it’s harder to defend the title than to win it for the first time.
– Definitely! But this happens not only in the volleyball but in every other sport. The season we started badly. Partly because of some changes in team: we lost Grozer and it was a big loss. It took us a lot of time to create a team again. However we managed to build a real team, with players like Jochen and Zibi (Schöps and Bartman – ed.) and it worked, we won the most important matches of the season. Those two players had a really huge contribution to our success and it’s really amazing that the plans that we had at the beginning of the season have been realized. We were disappointed that we failed in the Polish Cup or the Champions League but we defended the title and I’m glad that at the end of the season showed our strength.
For you individually it was also a good season. You played well, gained a few MVP awards. Have you already thought about you would like to stay in Rzeszów?
– I would like to definitely! Rzeszów is my second home, I feel really comfortable here and I’m happy here. I would love to stay here.
– For now I have some time to rest, I will come back to my home to take some rest, to recover. I had about two weeks to do that and after that I’ll go back to work and I will prepare with national team for the season.
source: siatka.org
