SG Flensburg-Handewitt - Telekom Veszprém 24:24

 

 

SG Flensburg-Handewitt: Andersson, Moller – Karlsson, Glandorf 5, Mogensen 4, Svan, Wanne 1, Djordjic, Jakobbson, Heinl 1, Zacharlassen, Toft Hansen 2, Gottfridsson 1, Mahe 9 (3), Radivojevic 1, Horvat

 

 

Telekom Veszprém: Mikler – Gulyás, Schuch, Ilic 7 (4), Palmarsson 3, Gajic, Nilsson 1, Nagy 6, Kopjar 1, Ugalde 2, Marguc 2, Terzic, Sulic 2

 

 

Penalties: 6/3 and 4/4

Suspension: 8 min. and 16 min.

 

 

Xavi Sabaté: First of all, I would like to congratulate Flensburg’s team and coach Vranjes for this amazing match. This was a great start of the season of Champions League. I am proud of my players because they worked really hard during the whole week despite of the difficulties. I think that we played well, however on some post we had only one player. Aron Palmarsson played good, however he has not trained a lot before the match and this proves his qualities. Our defense was good in the first half, Mikler saved fantastically but this was also true for Flensburg. We continued this game in the second half but I feel that our strength has gone a little bit and Flensburg could use this and proved why they are at the top of the Bundesliga. I am sad that at the end we could not win, however I am proud that we played so well - despite the fact that we had injured players - in the home of a possible Final4 participant. I would like to thank the fans, especially the Veszprém fans for the great atmosphere.

 

Roland Mikler: I congratulate Flensburg because they were fantastic today, however we were also, especially in defense, which is the most important thing to our team. I feel that we let a very important point lost today but we continue our hard work.

 

Ljubomir Vranjes: We have not played the way as we wanted in the first half of the match but it is also true that we played against one of the world’s best defense. We made a lot of mistakes and Veszprém revenged it with goals. At the same time, our defense was good. We tried to change strategy in the second half. Fortunately, in the last ten minutes we had enough power to catch up with them and to make a draw. Last year at home we lost 2 points against Veszprém, which is one of the world’s best handball teams, so this one point is definitely better than that. However, we can play better and we will play better in the future.

 

Tobias Karlsson: It was good to start the Champions’ League again, which has great matches for us because there are very good teams in our group. This match showed the fans what kind of matches they can expect in group “A”. This will be a real advertisement of handball. Our team tried to use every opportunity on today’s match and we could make a draw even if not everything was perfect.