Veszprém make history, Kiel take PSG’s fortress
In an extremely dominant way, Telekom Veszprém ended the winning streak of Barça: Since the 30:32 loss against Kielce in November 2021, the record winners had not lost any home match in the EHF Champions League, and only one match in total: the 2023 semi-final against SC Magdeburg. But Veszprém took the fortress Palau Blaugrana with an impressive 41:34 win, which means none of the 16 teams of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League has a clean record anymore. Also, for just the second time in history, Barça conceded 41 goals in 60 minutes in a Champions League match, the other instance being the 31:41 defeat at Kiel in 2008; never before has a visiting team scored 40 or more goals at Palau Blaugrana.
In group A, Kiel turned the page in Paris, winning there for the first time in nine years and taking the top again. While Plock took their first points of the season in a dominant way against Celje, Szeged and Porto took very close home wins on Thursday.
It was a tough match, we had to fight hard to turn the result around against a well-prepared Zagreb. We didn't play well, but we fought. I felt that in the first half we remained too calm, which meant we lacked the fire in our defense that we needed. We made changes during the break and fought with tremendous heart. We need to examine why our performance is unpredictable.
It was an outstanding match, with excellent goalkeeping performances, nice defence, in front of an excellent audience. It's sad that we lost, especially considering that we had the opportunity to secure a bigger lead, but we made several technical errors at that point. When it was six against six, we defended well, only conceding four goals. The match showed that our recent success is not a fluke; we represent quality and have the right attitude.
Today I’m very proud of my guys. We come here to grab the two points. It’s been a long time since our last win here. We fought a lot tonight, and in the end, our little mistakes didn’t make the difference to put us in a difficult situation. We didn’t give up and Samir made important saves at the end of the game.
It was a very tough game tonight. As Coach said, the last twenty minutes were difficult, and nothing worked. We tried to create good opportunities in offense, but we missed clutch shots. Kiel was stronger in the mind, and it was the key to success. Now, we must analyze our mistakes and focus on the next games.
It was a very strong match, We saw two different parts, in the first half we were not very strong defenders and GOG made a few easy goals; in the second half the defence and Niko were a little more pressured and they managed to give some energy to the match and that was the main difference.
Of course, we are disappointed for not maintaining control of the result after the first half, but the reason is sitting next to me (Mitrevski); we missed a lot of shots and we didn’t maintain the level of defense.”
I want to congratulate my players. There are few teams that have won at Palau Blaugrana, and it’s the first time for Veszprem. It’s a historic match for us. We played great during the 60 minutes. I can’t point to any particular player. Many players had playing time and all did really well.
They were a better team today. I’m not happy with our defense conceding 41 goals, and especially without any two-minute-exclusion. We now have to wake up and continue working. We have a long path ahead.
Congratulations to all my players for the win and for the hard work done in the last period. We deserved to score some points earlier, but we are also happy with the win now. Both teams played a bit nervously, which didn't give way to mistakes. I can safely say that our defense in the first 20 minutes allowed us to build up a lead, which we carried to the end.
I would like to congratulate our opponents, who are a very experienced team in contrast to us. In the Champions League, we gather experience against such class teams, which later bears fruit in our home league on which we are now focusing
