Foreshadow: Veszprém – Montpellier

Telekom Veszprém hosts Montpellier HB on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. in the quarter-finals of the VELUX EHF Champions League. The game is broadcasted live by Sport1 from 5:00 p.m.

 

 

The last time we met our next opponent was in the season 2014/2015 when we were both participating in the group during the Group phase. We managed to win at home in October of 2014 by one goal. Momir Ilic scored 6 while Andreas Nilsson scored 4 goals at the game ending in 30:29. Mathieu Grebille and Vid Kavticnik scored 9 goals each from the Fench side. The aways leg was easier. We won 20:34 in February of 2015. Borut Mackovsek, Diego Simonet, Gulyás Péter and Momir Ilic each scored 4 goals while Gasper Marguc bagged 8. Montpellier's biggest success was then they won the Champions League back in 2002/2003 against Portland San Antonio.

 

We face team on Saturday that is in a great form. They played in Group C this year and won it by winning 8 games out of 10 while losing only 2 games. The rules state that the first two teams of Group C and D have to play a knockout clash with each other. Montpellier faced Ukranian Motor Zaphorozhye who have finished in the second place in Group D. The French won in the away leg by 2 goals and it was enough for them to qualify for the best 16 teams following a draw at home court. In the best 16 they played against cup defenders Kielce and managed to march by past them with a confident double victory. Top scorers in the series are Jure Dolenec with 75, Mathieu Grebille with 69 and Jonas Truchanovicius with 41 goals.

 

 

Montpellier currently stands at 3rd place in a dead-heat with St. Raphael in the Lidl Starligue by winning 16 games out of 22 and suffering 6 loss. They trail Nantes by 7 point and PSG by 10 points. Last weekend they played a derby against Paris and only lost by one goal. Last time they played in the domestic league was on Wednesday where they beat Nimes 21:34. The top scorer for Montpellier in the league is Jure Dolenec with 114 goals which puts him in the 7th place on the scoring table. Another outstanding data is that Vincent Gerard performs with a 37% saving efficiency. He made 224 saves in 22 games which means that he has at least 10 saves per game. Montpellier scored 32 goals in average while concedes only 27 on defense in average.

 

The last time „Építők” played was last weekend in the Hungarian Cup Final Four where they managed to defend their title by beating Csurgó in the semif-final and then beating Szeged in the final. Before that they played in Belarus at the SEHA League Final4 where they fall short of defending the title by losing to Vardar Skopje. Their last Champions League game was against Zagreb where they marched to the best 8 by a back-to-back victory. Last time they played in the Hungarian championship was against Gyöngyös where they won 28:25.

 

Let's go Veszprém!

 

 

Photos: Montpellier HB Facebook and Zsolt Melczer