Foreshadow: Zagreb – Veszprém

PPD Zagreb hosts Telekom Veszprém in the best sixteen of VELUX EHF Champions League on Saturday at 6 p.m. The match will be broadcasted live from 5 p.m. by Sport1.

 

 

The knock-out phase starts in the Champions League. Veszprém will compete against Zagreb to reach a spot among the best 8 teams of Europe. Although we met them quite a few times in SEHA League we only met them 10 times in European cup series. Fortunately we have more wins in the history of the two teams in CL. There are 3 wins for Zagreb and 6 wins for Veszprém with only 1 draw.

 

Our head coach Xavi Sabaté said the following about this upcoming challenge: “Xavi Sabaté: It is the start of the knock out phase so two matches are waiting for us. The first game will be in Zagreb, their own arena with their own supporters. They are a really good team. Last year the Paris knocked out themin the last 8 and one year earlier the Barcelona defeated them in the quarter final. We already played against them in the SEHA League so we know each other very well. I am sure it will be a very tough match. We must prepare very well to try and get a good result but of course, we are going to Zagreb for the victory. They have different systems of defense, so it will be important to adapt to their changes. They have good fastbreaks, they run well. It will be important for us to attack well and avoid making technical mistakes. We also have to avoid letting them score easy goals on the fastbreaks. In attack they have good players. They play as a team. They are together for a long time now and they know each other very well. This is their strongest point I think. All in all they are a very dangerous team.”

 

 

Zagreb finished at the 6th place in Group B and grabbed the spot in the best 16 just by a thread. They collected 9 points from their 4 victories, 1 draw and 9 losses. The interesting thing in that group was that Celje finished with the same statistics. They collected 9 points, and had 4 wins even the goal difference between the two teams were the same. Zagreb marched on by scoring more away goals at the two teams' game in Celje. Top scorers for Zagreb are Stipe Mandalinic with 68, Zlatko Horvat with 47 and Dobrivoje Markovic with 37 goals.

 

The Croatian champion reached the Final Four of SEHA League just as Veszprém did. They will face Macedonian Vardar Skopje in the semi-final in Brest, Belarus. Top scorers in the SEHA League are Stipe Mandalinic with 74, Zlatko Horvat with 52 and Dobrivoje Markovic with 41 goals.

 

„Építők” played their last game in the Hungarian championship against Vác and managed to win by 11 goals. The last CL match was against Flensburg where Veszprém clinched the 3rd position of the group with a win of 34:28.

 

It is time to continue our march in CL! Let's go Veszprém!

 

 

Photos: Zsolt Melczer