Exactly three weeks after the dismissal of coach Ben Matschke, the handball Bundesliga club HSG Wetzlar has a new coach. It is the current Croatia national team coach, Hrvoje Horvat Junior.
Croatian national handball coach Hrvoje Horvat Junior is the new coach at HSG Wetzlar. The Bundesliga club from central Hesse announced this on Monday afternoon. Horvat will thus succeed Ben Matschke, who after a previously unsatisfactory season in Wetzlar was released at the end of November.
The Croatian association has now given HSG the go-ahead. Horvat will take over as head coach until the end of the season and should help the people of Central Hesse to master the currently tense sporting situation. The Wetzlarers are currently in the Bundesliga on a disappointing 15th place in the table.
Hrvoje Horvat: HSG a great club with a long tradition
“I’m happy and very grateful to those responsible at HSG Wetzlar for giving me the opportunity to coach a club with a very long tradition and a great environment,” said Horvat before taking office.
“At the same time, I would like to thank the Croatian Handball Association for the opportunity to coach a club team alongside my position as national coach. Just as it was my dream to one day lead the Croatian team, it was also a big goal of mine as head coach in the Bundesliga to be allowed to be.” In January, Horvat will once again be on the sidelines for the Croatian national handball team at the World Cup in Poland and Sweden.
Not the first contact to Hesse
The 44-year-old Horvat Junior has been coaching the Croatian national handball team since the beginning of 2021 as the successor to the extremely successful Lino Cervar, whose assistant he had previously been for four years. “Junior” because Horvat’s father, who won the gold medal with Yugoslavia at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, is also called Hrvoje Horvat.
Through the father there were already contacts to Hesse. Horvat senior led the East Hessian TV Eitra in the handball Bundesliga in 1994, and also coached the then second division team from Melsungen between 2000 and 2004.
And after Wetzlar there were and are other points of contact that will have played a role in signing Horvat. Croatian handball legend Ivano Balic, who was a playmaker for HSG in the Bundesliga from 2013 to 2015, was Horvat’s assistant for the Croatian handball team. Now Balic is taking on the same job alongside Horvat at HSG Wetzlar.
