Foreshadow: PSG - Veszprém

This Sunday, at 5 PM in Paris the first and the second team of CL’s “A” group are going to fight for group winning, namely MVM Veszprém and PSG Handball. The game will be broadcasted by Sport2.

 

 

It seems that we are facing Paris Saint-German over and over again, just like THW Kiel. We are going to play against them for the third time in a row in CL season and considering the previous results we face this match with confidence. We won against them three times, had a draw once; moreover we gained those victories right before the Final4 preventing them from getting into the final in Cologne twice in a row.

 

19.04.2014.: PSG Handball - MKB-MVM Veszprém, CL quarter final - 26:28 (14:12)

26.04.2014.: MKB-MVM Veszprém - PSG Handball, CL quarter final - 31:26 (12:12)

12.04.2015.: PSG Handball - MKB-MVM Veszprém, CL quarter final - 24:24 (10:12)

19.04.2015.: MKB-MVM Veszprém - PSG Handball, CL quarter final - 34:28 (16:12)

 

Since the CL game last April, we have played with them in the summer in Strasbourg in the final of EuroTournoi where we won with one goal (32:21) because Mikkel Hansen missed the penalty in the last second of the game.

  

Although PSG did not qualify into the top 4 teams in Champions League, they won the French Championship and started to get even stronger. They have probably signed the most important contract of last summer; Nikola Karabatic, who was the top player of CL Final4 in 2015, signed for the French team which is valid until 2019. Leaving Aix-en-Provence, his brother Luka signed for the team for this period as well. Thus, both of them can work with their former coach Noka Serdarusic who replaced Phillippe Garden.

 

The new coach was born in former Yugoslavia, and then he got the German citizenship in 2008; he can’t speak French, he is managing his team in German. Some of his former players in Bundesliga help him get over with the communication problems. His personal collection includes a CL victory, three EHF Cup victories; in addition he had been the coach of THW Kiel for eleven seasons and of Flensburg for three seasons.

 

 

Two more back players have signed for PSG, namely Henrik Mollgaard (Skjern Handbold) and Sergiy Onufryienko (Motor Zaporozhye), while Marko Kopljar (FC Barcelona), Jakov Gojun (Füchse Berlin), Zacharia N’Diaye (Chartres) and Mladen Bojinovic (Banja Luka) left the team.

 

Paris Saint-German is still undefeated in the 2015/16 season of the French Championship. In the first round of CL they suffered a 7-goal defeat in Flensburg; this loss, however, was followed by four victories: Plock and Zagreb at home, Besiktas and Celje away. The top scorers are Mikkel Hansen (43 goals) and Nikola Karabatic (36); the former is in the first place of the scoring list of CL, the latter is the fifth.

 

 

Our team is going to arrive in Paris at 12:30 PM, Saturday and from 7 PM Coach Sabaté is going to train the boys in the venue of the match. They are going to travel back home after the game on Sunday at 7:15 PM.

 

Let us take a look at other interesting statistics. It might be the 60th official game of Andreas Nilsson in Veszprém jersey, and the 90th EHF game of Mirsad Terzic and Renato Sulic. It will be the 125th CL game for Gergő Gulyás; and in case of scoring 4 goals this Sunday, he would reach the 1300 level, while Momir Ilic has scored 245 CL goals as the player of Veszprém.

 

MVM Veszprém gained an amazing triumph last Saturday against THW Kiel but the upcoming game is expected to be really hard in Paris against the team which has been considered to be one of the top teams and has become stronger than ever. Coach Xavi Sabaté still cannot count on two of his right backs László Nagy and Christian Zeitz, which makes this match more difficult. However, the team’s ability to fight and their team work seemed to compensate them. They must to maintain this attitude this weekend in the Halle Georges Carpentier Arena where 160 Veszprém fans will cheer for the team.