He only had three days at home in Brazil to recover from the painful defeat in his career: Morten Soubak made his way straight to Montenegro to see the Brazilian women’s youth team at the world championship after the London shock. Nine days before the start of the IHF competition Soubak had to see how his team – the Brazilian women – lost their Olympic quarter-final against later-on Olympic champions Norway 20:22 after leading 15:9. 
In Montenegro, Danish born Soubak is looking for talents for their next big dream, the Olympic Games on home ground – Rio 2016. In this interview Soubak - a nominee for the IHF World Handball Coach award 2011 - also analyses the Women’s Youth World Championship and the situation of handball in Brazil. 

Are you satisfied with the performances of the Brazilian team in Montenegro?
Morten Soubak: First of all, I came here to see the individual skills and the opportunities of the personal development of those young players. I want to see how they could become a part of our future women’s national team. And I want to see how they present themselves at the first major tournament of their career, and to see if the coach and also I can rely on them. And of course I want to give my support to our coach. We already have Rio 2016 in our minds and even the preparations for the next Olympic Games will start soon. But for this youth team maybe the time will come in 2020. 
To return to your question, I recognize that there are some players in our youth team, who will get their chances in the future. I do believe in this team. They have potential, maybe not for 2013 or 2014, but for later-on. It is our job to find all potential players for the future early enough to build up a strong team, which is able to remain on top. 

What else did you recognize at the competition in Montenegro?
Morten Soubak: It is highly interesting to see the general development of different countries. You have the chance to see the upcoming world class players of the next generation and from now on you can follow their way to the senior teams later. But at the latest in two years you will see if players “fly” above the rest, and maybe we will see players, who you did not recognize before, who then rise quickly – it is always the same with younger age category teams. Some players will stagnate; others will develop later, but faster than the rest. The base is built at this Youth World Championship. But even in the senior team you have some shooting stars – look at World Handball Player Heidi Löke, who had not even been in the Norwegian squad in Beijing, or our Eduarda Amorim, who has developed rapidly in the last two to three years. 

What are the general long-term objectives of Brazilian women’s handball?
Morten Soubak: At first we want to continue our philosophy to form a strong adult team from our youth programmes, so we have to work on the individual skills of the players. The second part of our strategy is to establish and improve handball in Brazil. More players should stay and play in Brazil despite the success of our programmes with a large number of players at European top clubs. Of course it is highly important for our upcoming success that our players gain international experience, and thanks to our top results in the past years, Brazilian players became highly interesting for European clubs. But we have to ensure a bigger development in Brazil. We will install a national training centre for our young talents in the near future, which is a major step in fulfilling this strategy. 

Only two weeks ago your women’s team missed the Olympic semi-final unluckily after the quarter-final defeat against Norway. Have you already recovered from this shock?
Morten Soubak: It is really hard for all of us to overcome this shock. We played so well in the first half, and we had this once-in-a-lifetime chance to proceed to the semi-finals. But then we were taught this bitter lesson, which showed why Norway is the defending champion of all major competitions. They have this quality that you need to turn such a game around. We are still suffering from this defeat and we will suffer in the future from this defeat.

But your next chance to win an Olympic medal will be under different circumstances, as you will have ‘home Games’ in Rio…
Morten Soubak: Our starting situation is completely different compared with Great Britain before the London Games. We have a handball tradition, we have established handball in the whole country, we are already successful and do not have to find players all over the world who want to live this Olympic dream. We have been structuring our handball and our preparations for Rio 2016. We have shown that we are capable to play on one level with the best teams in the world, and we still have our Olympic dream. On continental level we are clearly ahead of all opponents in Pan-America, but we still have to develop and improve of course. Officially we start our project Rio 2016 in October, and I believe that most of our current players will remain in our team until then.