Aalborg boosted by Mikkel’s signature and Barthold goals

On the historic day when Mikkel Hansen announced his signing for Aalborg Håndbold from 2022 onwards, his future club was on a high; the Danish side took their sixth group phase victory and the first one in 2021, beating HC PPD Zagreb comfortably 38:29, boosted by the nine goals of Sebastian Barthold.

GROUP B

Aalborg Håndbold (DEN) vs. HC PPD Zagreb (CRO) 38:29 (22:14)

• Thanks to the victory, Aalborg pass HC Motor and take third place from the Ukrainian side, which is level on 12 points.
• Aalborg had never before scored 22 goals in the first half of any EHF Champions League match - their previous best was a 19:16 at Veszprem this season.
• Aalborg’s Norwegian, Sebastian Barthold, had a perfect start, as he scored 4 of their first 6 and 7 of their first 12. In the end, he had nine goals on his tally.
• Including Barthold and Mark Marcher (eight goals today, 25 in total), now eight Aalborg players have scored 25 or more times in the group phase.
• The host were close to their biggest ever EHF Champions League victory, a +14 in the 37:23 win against Halmstad (Sweden) in 2013. While Zagreb were close to their worst ever result.

Since the 2015/16 season, when the group phase of the EHF Champions League was played with eight teams per group, the lowest number points is two after 14 matches, by Besiktas in 2015/16 and Schaffhausen in 2016/17. HC PPD Zagreb have zero points on their account now, but still have three chances (at Nantes and Kiel and home to Veszprem) not to finish the season empty-handed. The lowest results of the Croatian record champions since 2015/16 were five points in the 2019/20 season and six points in 2017/18.