Montpellier HB - Telekom Veszprém 25:30

 

Montpellier HB: Gerard, Portner – Anquetil, Simonet, Causse 2, Truchanovicius 2, Toumi, Grebille, Dolenec 9 (5), Villeminot, Zvizej, Bonnefond 2, Faustin, Fabregas 4, Porte 4, Bingo 2

 

Telekom Veszprém: Mikler, Alilovic – Iváncsik 1, Schuch, Ilic, Palmarsson 7 (2), Gajic 5 (1), Nilsson 4, Nagy 4, Ugalde 3, Marguc 2, Terzic, Blagotinsek, Sulic 2, Lékai 2

 

Penalties: 6/5 and 4/3

Suspensions: 4 min. and 10 min.

 

Xavi Sabaté: Congratulations to my team for the qualification and for this game. Montpelier deserves it too, they are a great team and they played wonderfully in the first half and caused a lot of problems for us. Our goal was to win and not to hold our advantage. Montpellier defended very well in the first half in a 5-1 formation. We made some changes for the second half which made our attack better and our defense stronger. Thanks to this we could score easy fastbreak goals and the advantage we gained during that time was enough thanks to the help of Alilovic's saves. He performed a superb 15 minutes. Again congratulations to my team because it is a huge thing to qualify for the Final4 four times in a row.

 

Mirko Alilovic: First for all congratulations to the boys because as Xavi said it is hard to qualify for the Final4 four times in a row. Montpellier is an amazing team and it makes our qualification even sweeter, knowing that we beat a very good team. We knew it will be hard here. We were aware that our 3 goals advantage does not mean anything against such a quick team. We performed better in the second half in every part of the game, we managed to score fastbreak goals and get even before actually winning the game.

 

Patrice Canayer: Congratulations to Veszprém. It was a great thing to play against them in the quarter-finals. In my opinion this club is the biggest one in Europe. They perform in the highest level for years now. They may not were able to in the Champions League yet but this year they have a chance again. Congratulations to the referees, who controlled the game well although it was a very physical one. Congratulations to my team who performed outstanding in this series. We had some difficulties in the start of the season. We came from a lower ranking group but we managed to play for the Final4. We played a fantastic first half and we tried to keep that level for the second period also but it was not possible against a very strong opponent. I hope we can get even stronger to get a round closer.

 

Jure Dolenec: We are disappointed because we had a great first half although if we look back on the past years we can see how much we have improved and it gives us a positive view. Congratulations to Veszprém they were better in both games. Congratulations to every member and supporter of Montpellier they made a fantastic atmosphere. I will not be here next year but I really hope Montpellier can get here again, or even further.