Sävehof, Füchse, Löwen and Dinamo reach quarter-finals
The EHF European League Men 2023/24 play-offs have concluded, with two German teams, reigning champions Füchse Berlin and Rhein-Neckar Löwen, securing their quarter-final berths alongside Dinamo Bucuresti and IK Sävehof.
Dinamo maintained their flawless record, following up their first-game victory with another win, propelled by a stellar performance from Vladimir Cupara. Sävehof not only defended their home court but also overcame a four-goal deficit to secure progression, eliminating TSV Hannover-Burgdorf in the process.
Meanwhile, Füchse Berlin and Rhein-Neckar Löwen delighted German fans by confirming their first-leg wins and remaining undefeated.
Of course we are disappointed that Cupara destroyd the game for us in the first half, so we didn’t have a chance to get to the quarter-finals. It could have been an exciting game and a good game for us here in JYSK arena, but it never was.
We played very good today. We were really concentrated in the beginning of the game. Bjerringbro-Silkeborg was playing a bit nervous because they were three goals down. We had an amazing goalkeeper, and an amazing defence. So it was a good game for us.
This was one of the biggest victories in the history of our club, so obviously we’re extremely proud. I'm extra proud that we kept calm against older and more experienced players and continued to run on the counter-attacks and to be offensive in our mindset.
Sävehof deserved to win this game, it was clear that they invested more than us into tonight’s performance. This proved to be our last game in Europe for this season, so we’re very disappointed because our goal was to qualify for the quarter-finals.
We laid the foundation for today's victory in the first half. In the first 15-20 minutes in particular, we defended superbly, pushed the pace and built up a comfortable lead. In the second half, thanks to the four-goal win in the first leg, we were sure that we wouldn't be able to lose any more. Of course, we are now super happy to have advanced to the next round.
Berlin has a great venue, a superb atmosphere. It was exciting to play here. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to set up our defence. That allowed the Foxes to score easy goals, especially in the first half, when they exploited all the gaps. They played with a lot of pace again, we knew that, but unfortunately we didn't manage to get it under control. We wanted to sell ourselves a little better in the second half and we managed to do that.
It was very important to have a good start and go ahead in the game. We missed some chances after Nexe's goalkeeper-change and struggled for some minutes, but in the second half we re-established better control of the game. Joel Birlehm became an important factor, he brought a lot of fresh energy into our game and had some really important saves.
We played much better than in the first game last week at home. Especially in the defence we showed a much better performance. Unfortunately we didn’t catch up with that in the offence, where we had two extremely bad phases. Löwen seized that and won as the better team.
Play-off round, leg 2 action
