This happened in our CL group

This weekend, Champions League’s group round ended. As we have already reported, in Montpellier MKB-MVM Veszprém had a glorious triumph as the group winner in a game that did not influence neither of the teams’ position on the table. In the following, we will sum up the group’s other two matches.

 

 

The game which got the biggest attention was Löwen-Vardar match in Mannheim because it decided the 2nd place of “C” group. It was simple: if the home team won, they would end in a better position; if not, then the Macedonian team could wait for final 8 with better chances.

 

 

At the beginning, Vardar played better, their fast breaks were effective; moreover Árpád Sterbik as a goalkeeper was in the required condition. Gedeon Guardiola’s injury in the first half made Löwen’s situation worse and Bjarte Myhol could not help his team, either. Karacic stood against the defensive wall, and mainly Dibirov was successful against the disordered defense. Germans were not able to score for minutes in the first half. They could not change the course of the game with timeouts or Landin’s substitution.

 

In the second half, the game basically proceeded in the same way, the quest team headed with 11 goals. Then, Macedonians gave a change for the guest team to improve their play so finally the difference was 7 goals.

 

Scorers:

Löwen: Schmid 6, Larsen és Groetzki 5- 5, Sigurmannsson és Petersson 3-3, Gensheimer, Reinkind és Ekdahl du Rietz 2-2

Vardar: Karacic 8, Dibirov 6, Toskic, Dujshebaev és Gorbok 4-4, S. Stoilov és Shishkarev 3-3, Terzic 2, Lazarov 1

 

 

The last two teams of the group played without any pressure. The guest team played better at first, and they were close to the home team through the first half. In the Slovenian team, Ivan Sliskovic and Blaz Janc performed great; while in the Russian team, the pivot player Alexander Chernoivanov was the best. In the second half Alexander Dereven’s red card pulled back the ‘bears’. Then, Celje revived, overtook and finally won.

 

Scorers:

Celje: Janc 6, Sliskovic 6, S. Ivic 4, Blagotinsek 3, Miklavcic 3, Kodrin 2, Poteko 2, Zarabec 1, Zuran 1, L. Zvizej 1

Medvedi: Chernoivanov 5, Kovalev 5, Dereven 3, Kotov 3, Zhitnikov 3, Andreev 2, Ostashchenko 2, Kuretkov 1, Otrezov 1

 

You can check the results of our group here.

 

So group matches ended this weekend. Eight final draw is coming on Tuesday at 12:30 in Vienna. Match up will be the following: group winners with the 4th team and the 2nd team with the 3th team. Team from same groups cannot play with each other but teams from same countries might clash. The teams’ second game will be in the home of the team which had better position in the end of group round.

 

 

MKB-MVM Veszprém can have the Spanish La Rioja, the Danish Aalborg, or Champions League’s title defender, the German Flensburg as opponent team.

 

Photo: www.ehfcl.com and www.facebook.com/ehf.champions.league?fref=ts