Kiel in quarter-finals; Porto and Plock set up crucial last clash
Round 13 of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League opened on Wednesday with the first major decision: THW Kiel became the first team to qualify for the quarter-finals after their 28:27 victory in Szeged – but as Aalborg Håndbold won 33:28 against HC Eurofarm Pelister, Kiel are not yet group winners.
Both teams fought great. We knew that Kiel is one of the best teams in the world, they play at a high level and are extremely dangerous against a disorganised defence. Despite the defeat, I have to praise my players because we tried everything and maybe we deserved one point, but that's the sport.
I am proud of the guys because they believed in themselves, so after two defeats we managed to win in the PICK Arena. We are going through a busy period, we have a lot of matches, this game was also intense. Szeged is a strong team, they have remarkable results this season, we also had to be lucky to be able to win.
Our first half tonight was best half of the European season. But if you want to win against giants like Aalborg you must play like this for 60 minutes. Playing like this we will win a lot of matches this season.
We prepared for seven against six, but Eurofarm Pelister played very good in the first half. Our answer was great at the start of the second half. Individual quality was key to the match.
We had the game in a good position and we fell 10 minutes before the end, so we are a little disappointed now, because we think that we should have been keeping the distance.
We are not happy with one point - we came here and believed that we could get two points. It was a good feeling to play this game, and both teams were amazing in defence, and even though we were behind by five, we believed that we could win. But it’s not every day you win points in GOG. It was a good fight with a lot of good tactics from both teams.
They showed that they have quality in their team, in the first half we started a little bit slow, but then we brought up the pace of the game and our game style. For the first 45 minutes, our team was strong, but then Celje started to play better, and closed the gap. But in the end, in our home with our fans, we had the strength to get the win.
Today we played a very good first half. Porto is a very experienced team, we have a very young one, now we need to focus on our next match for the national championship.