Miha Zarabec: "I like to play for ambitious clubs"

“Paris are still Paris, even though Nikola Karabatic – the real GOAT – has ended his career. With new arrivals such as Yahia Omar and Dani Baijens, they play much quicker now. But maybe this is our chance to beat them, as (we) rather prefer to play against faster teams. Definitely, facing PSG is always something special for us,” Miha Zarabec says.

The head-to-head stats between the teams clearly speak in favour of the French side, which has won all eight previous matches against the team from Poland – most recently in last season's play-offs, when PSG won in Plock 30:26 and a week later in Paris 34:33.

Zarabec hopes for great support from the stands when Plock chase their first ever win over PSG in Thursday's MOTW.

“With their support, we can beat any team. And definitely, we can play better than we have shown in the first two Champions League matches. There is still room for improvement,” says the 32-year-old centre back, who joined Plock in the summer of 2023 from THW Kiel.

“In the beginning, it was a major change for me. But the club and my teammates integrated me as quickly as possible, so it went quite smoothly to start in Plock. Of course, playing in the Polish league is different to playing in Germany,” says Zarabec.

In his first season with Plock, Zarabec and his side beat their major rivals from Kielce both in the league and the cup to win both trophies.

“We had hoped for the double, but nobody could expect that it happened," Zarabec says. "Of course, the expectation rose with those titles and with the new arrivals. But I like to play for ambitious clubs which aim high, like in Kiel before. But we know that it only goes step by step, nothing happens overnight.”

For the current season, Plock signed Icelandic goalkeeper Viktor Hallgrímsson and Slovenian talent Mitja Janc, younger brother of Barça star Blaz Janc. For 2025, the transfers of Melvyn Richardson and Torbjørn Bergerud have been confirmed.

Besides the hope to continue their success in domestic competitions, the Machineseeker EHF Champions League is in the club's focus.

"We should not talk about Cologne. We have lost the first two matches, as we already lost some points we should not have lost. But everything is possible, when you make it to the play-offs or quarter-finals. We dream of once in our club history being part of the EHF FINAL4, as this is our ambition,” says Zarabec, who knows how it feels to be part of this event, having qualified twice with Kiel – in 2020 and 2021 – and even winning the trophy in 2020, one year after raising the EHF Cup.

Including Zarabec, four Slovenians now play for Plock.

"It feels good to have some countrymen around. All of them are much younger than me, so I can help them in everything around to fully focus on sports. We have a lot of players from the Balkans here, in contrast to Kiel before,” Zarabec says.

However, he was the only one of Plock’s Slovenians to be part of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where the team finished fourth for their best ever result at Olympics.

"In the end, we were sad, because we were so close to a medal but missed it. This event was huge for us, we got so much energy and we had such a great friendship among the players. It will definitely be a long-lasting memory. I am so proud of what we made there,” Zarabec says.

Like for all Olympians, the recovery time was short – but winning the Polish super cup, beating Industria Kielce again at the start of the season, gave extra motivation for the whole team.

“Now we need to deliver our level in the EHF Champions League”, says Zarabec – and believe the MOTW against PSG shall be their turning point. The highlight game of round 3 starts Thursday at 20:45 CEST (live on EHFTV) at ORLEN Arena in Plock.

all photos © Jerzy Stankowski / Orlen Wisla Plock