Pletikosic buzzer beater seals thrilling MOTW win; CSM convincing
Saturday’s action in the first leg of the EHF Champions League Women 2024/25 Play-offs saw two exciting games. The Match of the Week delivered last-second drama as Podravka Vegeta edged Brest Bretagne Handball 27:26 after a nail-biting finish. CSM Bucuresti proved their dominance in the all-Romanian duel against Rapid Bucuresti, taking a 34:24 win, and significantly boosted their chances of progressing to the quarter-finals.
We expected this type of game, because we followed Podravka Vegeta this season and we saw that this team plays very good together. Their players have a good connection in attack. When in defence they fight. It was a close game. The specatators were happy. We have now one week to analyse everything, to try to be a little bit better, also to try to win with two goals difference. We lost more balls than usual. Their defence was really good and they had a very good strategy. Also, the goalkeeper had a lot of saves. We have a lot of things to improve for next week.
The game was tight. We had good energy and desire. Sometimes it goes to the opponent's side, while today it went our way. The girls have really worked great all season and are still working great. I came to help them. A beautiful team was created and everything works great. We support each other. When there was a certain energy drop or a drop in concentration, we continued to cheer each other on. The coach also said, 'girls, don't give up. Fight and enjoy yourselves.' In the end, that led to the victory. I think it's a big deal that we beat the Brest team. As they say, the first half is on our side, and now we have 60 minutes left and we'll see. It's always harder to play away.
It was a hard game. We fought against a strong team. The atmosphere was very nice for handball. We had a very good first half. In the end I am happy we went with the plus 10 because they were close to us. I think we had a lot of players that played a good game. Also, in the defence, especially in the first half, we were really strong.
We gave them a lot of easy goals by giving them some balls today. They did better in almost every aspect. There is not much that I can say. Thank you so much for everyone that supported us. We have a week ahead to prepare and step up and play better.
