Gabor Boros starting coaching and playing for Telstar Hesperange in the National 3 in the 2012/13 season. 10 years later, he will coach the club in the cup semi-finals. „The year I arrived in Luxembourg, the club did not have big goals for the upcoming years envisioned. We started winning some games, moved up to the second league and then, after 2 seasons, we were in a situation to compete for the top spots in that league and we started believing in that possibility. Suddenly, we were able to promote and compete with the best teams in the country. The goals came when results came, we did not really have a plan to promote to the first league in a special time period. »
(Telstar Hesperange in the 2013/14 season, Gabor Boros is in the back)
Telstar will fight against relegation at the end of the season as the team has a 6:16 record after the regular season. However, their coach remains optimistic: „Our season has been ok so far, we had many exciting games with late comebacks and obviously we are in the cup semi-finals, that is a big bonus for our team and club.“
In the semi-final, the team is the clear underdog against Basket Esch, but the league is balanced and in one game, everything is possible: „Our guys are extremely excited and we want to show a big fight. We enter this game with confidence because we know that we can beat a stronger team on any night if we play well and we have shown that already this season (Telstar beat Sparta in the cup quarter finals 87:69). My guys are happy to play this game and I hope that they are not satisfied with making the semi-final, even if we are obviously not the favorite against Basket Esch in this game. Everybody knows that anything can happen in a do or die game, especially in the Coque. There are 2 more games to win in this competition and that is our focus, we are very motivated. »
Basket Esch is a strong opponent and Telstar lost both games against the team this season: „In our first matchup, we got blown off the floor (56:88), but the second game against them (64:76 loss) was much better. It is difficult to prepare for a team that has changed the professional player and with that change, also their playing style changed so that we will face a different team this week. Obviously their luxembourgish players are very strong, the Biever-brothers are capable of scoring 20+ points and they have a lot of quality overall on that squad. They are clearly one of the teams that are the favorite to win the championship. So I will rewatch the games that we played against each other but foremost the recent games that Esch played with their new professional player. We know that we will have to play at our best to even compete with Esch, but that is a big challenge that we are looking forward to. »
For the club from Hesperange, it is a special situation as both the women’s team (cup FLBB final on Saturday) and the men’s team will play in the Coque this week and the club is celebrating its 50th birthday this season.
The games this week
Tuesday, March 8th:
18h30 Amicale Steinsel – T71 Dudelange
20h45 Arantia Larochette – Etzella Ettelbruck
Wednesday, March 9th:
18h30 Basket Esch – Résidence Walferdange
20h45 Basket Esch – Telstar Hesperange
Saturday, March 12th (Arena)
13h15 AS Zolwer – Telstar Hesperange (Cup FLBB women)
15h00 Black Frogs Schieren – Eastside Pirates (Cup FLBB men)
17h30 Lalux Ladies Cup Final (women)
20h15 Loterie Nationale Coupe de Luxembourg Final (men)
TICKET PRESALE –> Ticket presale semi-finals cup
