Foreshadow: Veszprém - Aalborg

 

Telekom Veszprém hosts Aalborg Handbold in the VELUX EHF Champions League in the Veszprém Arena on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The game will be broadcasted by Sport 1 from 5 p.m.

 

 

There are only a few teams in Europe that Veszprém has never played against and Aalborg is one of them. It is no surprise however because our next opponent only plays in the biggest European club competition for the 4th time. Their first appearance was in the season 2010/2011 while in the seasons 2013/2014 and 2014/15 they qualified for the group stage two years in a row. From there they qualified for the best 16 but there Barcelona stopped them in both years.

 

Aalborg currently stands at 4th place in the 888Ligaen of Denmark. Silkeborg leads the championship but our opponent of Saturday is behind them only by 2 points while playing one less game than the leader. They played 8 games so far and won 6 of them while losing against Silkeborg and Kolding. Their top scorer in the domestic league is Patrick Wiesmach with 44 goals.

 

Our next opponent is at last place in group B with 1 victory and 4 defeats out of 5 games. Their performance is not to be underestimated though because of 2 things. First, they won against Celje at home and lost from Kiel by only 1 goal. Second, Veszprém always struggles against Scandinavian teams, just to mention the last one, last season we could only defeat Silkeborg at home by one goal. Top scorer of Aalborg in the CL is Buster Juul-Lassen with 27 goals.

 

 

The team of Aron Kristjansson has weakened over the summer. The biggest star of the team, Sander Sagosen, signed to PSG while the second biggest name, Stefan Sigurmansson signed to Szeged. Besides them Chris Jörgenssen and Christian Jensen left, both to Sönderjyske. The most notable name who arrived for this season is Lovro Jotic from Zagreb. His Champions League experience will definitely help Aalborg in the competition. Besides him many other player signed to the Danish champion like Sebastian Barthold from Haslum, Jesper Meinby from Massy Essonne, Jacob Hessellund from Frederikshavn, Sören Pedersen from Skjern and Andreas Holst from GOG.

 

The “Építők” played in the K&H league on Tuesday where they hosted Komló and won 32:17. The last time they played in the Champions League was in Kielce two weeks ago where they achieved a draw in the last seconds and managed to keep the unbeaten run going. The goal on Saturday will be another 2 point night but as we have already mentioned it is not easy to win against Danish teams.

 

Let’s go Veszprém!

 

 

Photo: Dávid Vörös, EHF Champions League Facebook page