On handball. Wait? Seriously? HAND-BALL?

Yepp, handball. 

It's an olympic sport, quite popular in Europe, but virtually a mystery anywhere else. And it's basically the one team sport that I kind of follow. Talk about that with american guys and they'll chuckle. Or shamelessly laugh. 

Well, chuckles aside, the 2012/13 season is now officially over and my home team, Cimos Koper, finished in third place. Which is really good. All things considered. 

SOTD. Kind of silly, I know.

You see, Slovenia is a weird place to do something good. We are amazingly good at many, many, many things. But unfortunately, we really suck at keeping up with all the good stuff we manage to create. In life, as in economy, politics and sports. So, after many really good and exciting seasons, huge financial trouble is what might kill my home team. Which is sad. But what is saddest is that no one is surprised, really. The same happened many times over with good teams throughout this cute little country of ours. 

Many supporters feel that this time, things might end up on a different note. Most players are willing to stay on the team, despite the dreadful financial situation and they even managed to keep up their motivation and won yesterday's match. WON big, since the overall third place was decided in the last few minutes of the match. It was basically a grandiose "fuck off" to every soul that dared dismiss them. Respect, guys.

Well, regardless of the fact that yesterday's might have been their last match I got to see, I am proud that I dragged my butt over there and screamed, cheered, booed and applauded.  

And let that last match be yet another "closure" deed before I leave for the States. Oh, how I love being a tad dramatic. 

And girls, handball has many, many perks:

Renato Vugrinec, RK Metalurg Skopje, FYROM (photo credits: time.mk and radio-ptuj.si)

Uroš Zorman, KS Vive Targi Kielce, Poland (photo credits: gwizdek24.se.pl and wspieramyklub.pl)

Matjaž Brumen, RK Cimos Koper, Slovenia (photo credits: siol.net and rtvslo.si)

Luka Žvižej, RK Celje Pivovarna Laško, Slovenia (photo credits: 24ur.com, delmagyar.hu, vecer.com)

Caught your breath yet? Wiped the droolsies off? Good. Those four hotties are, in fact, really badass Slovenian handball players. Get it now?

We shall speak of swimmers next time, right?

Jules