The group phase of the DELO EHF Champions League is over, with 112 games elapsed, producing 6,132 goals. Four teams have already progressed to the quarter-finals, the top two teams in each group, with eight ready to contend in the play-offs and the remaining four ending their European season prematurely.
We saw amazing winning streaks unfolding, dramatic losing runs and teams failing to meet their objectives, all packaged in high-octane matches, with plenty of dramatic results. Are you ready to walk through what happened over the last five months?
Is Györ’s recipe the best for performance?
Last season was one to forget for Györi Audi ETO KC, the Hungarian powerhouse which clinched the title four times in seven editions since the current format was introduced. The coaching change late last season seriously affected Györ, but set up the Hungarian powerhouse for a title challenge this season.
And it worked wonders, with Győr boasting a 13-game winning streak, their second-highest ever in the competition, just three games shy of the all-time record set by them between February 2018 and January 2019. With Ambros Martin back at the helm, Györ were their usual selves, clinching impressing wins against powerhouses like Metz Handball, CSKA and Vipers Kristiansand, only for their first loss to come in the last round against the title holders, 30:29.
The most impressive feature for Györ was their consistency. Despite scoring an all-time high of 471 goals in the group phase, none of their players hit the 50-goal mark during the season. In fact, five of their backs, Ryu Eun Hee, Estelle Nze Minko, Stine Bredal Oftedal, Anne Mette Hansen and Veronica Kristiansen, scored between 43 and 46 goals, none ranking higher than the 36th place in the top goal scorer standings. Depth is always one of the most sought attributes for a winner and Györ have it in droves this season. Defensively, Györ have also impressed, conceding the third-fewest goals in the competition, 354, underlining Martin’s impact on the team.
Will Kastamonu bounce back from a tough season?
Making a debut in the DELO EHF Champions League is always hard for any team, but Kastamonu Belediyesi GSK set an unwanted record for the worst start in the European top flight.
The Turkish champions aimed high by signing four players from Buducnost BEMAX, experienced wings Majda Mehmedovic and Jovanka Radicevic, back Milena Raicevic and goalkeeper Marina Rajcic, but the plan backfired spectacularly, with the Turkish side conceding 14 losses in 14 games, finishing last in Group B, without scoring a single point.
No team conceded more goals than Kastamonu, 462, and only two scored fewer than the Turkish side, 349, despite Radicevic producing another vintage season, scoring 86 goals, the third-largest amount in the competition, which put her close to the 1000 mark, with 978 goals. It was also the third-largest losing streak in history, only behind RK Krim Mercator’s 16-game losing streak and Annagennisi Artas’ 15-game losing streak, leaving Kastamonu to wonder what really went wrong this season.
Add a coaching change, with Romanian coach Costica Buceschi leaving in the first weeks of 2022 and the picture is definitely one to improve for the Turkish champions.
Can Neagu become the all-time top goalscorer?
While Radicevic is the highest-scoring player still active, with 978 goals scored in the DELO EHF Champions League, her former teammate from CSM Bucuresti, Cristina Neagu, is eager to become only the third player in history to win the top goalscorer title three times. Neagu, already the top goal scorer of the competition in the 2014/15 and the 2017/18 seasons, is leading the standings with 94 goals, seven more than Savehof’s Jamina Roberts and eight goals over Vipers’ Nora Mørk and Radicevic.
Neagu, who scored 894 times in the DELO EHF Champions League in 14 seasons, averaging a whopping 63.8 goals per game average, still needs to progress to the DELO EHF FINAL4 to seal that title. A double-header against CSKA Moscow awaits for CSM Bucuresti in the play-offs, with a quarter-finals tie against Team Esbjerg looming in late April were the Romanian side to proceed.
If Neagu does win the title, she would become only the second player in history to become the top goal scorer of the competition three times, after Nataliya Derepasko, the current coach of RK Krim Mercator, and Russian back Natalia Morskova. However, Neagu still has a long way to go to the first place in the all-time standings, topped by Anita Gorbicz, with 1,016 goals.
Is there a bigger surprise than Esbjerg?
Before the start of the season, Team Esbjerg’s record in the DELO EHF Champions League read as 17 wins, three draws and 20 losses, a mediocre one by all standards. However, the Danish team, who finished fourth last season in the domestic league, broke all barriers, delivering a season for the ages and qualifying for the second time in five participations to the quarter-finals.
The addition of the MVP of last season’s DELO EHF FINAL4, Norwegian back Henny Reistad, truly worked wonders as she picked up where she left off last season when scoring 88 goals for Vipers Kristiansand. Reistad has already 77 goals under her belt, becoming Esbjerg’s top scorer as the Danish side navigated through roster problems to win Group A, with 10 wins, three draws and a single loss, building their biggest unbeaten streak, 12 games, the fifth-longest in the history of the competition.
Credit to their coach, Jesper Jensen, who constantly improved Esbjerg since assuming the position in the summer of 2017, building a team that is hard to beat at home and constantly shifts their tactics, being able to win both attacking shootouts and hard-fought, close games.
Was Rostov’s bet on defence successful?
When Rostov-Don signed Eduarda Amorim and Beatrice Edwige last summer, the signal was clear: after right back Anna Vyakhireva announced taking a break from handball, the focus was going to be improving the defence and creating the best one in the DELO EHF Champions League. The result after 14 games? Well, it looks like the plan worked, with the Russian side conceding only 302 goals, an average of 21.58 goals per game.
Rostov’s woes were definitely in attack, being responsible for each one of the three losses that nearly saw Per Johansson’s side in the play-offs, rather than in the quarter-finals. But it was the defence that saved them once again in the last Match of the Week of the group phase, limiting a potent Brest Bretagne Handball attack to only 19 goals.
However, more is needed from Rostov in the next matches, especially if they meet Metz Handball in the quarter-finals, a modern classic in recent seasons of the DELO EHF Champions League.
Who was hot and who was not?
Two teams from Hungary (Györ and FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria), two from Russia (Rostov-Don and CSKA), two from Denmark (Esbjerg and Odense Handbold) and two from France (Metz Handball and Brest Bretagne Handball) join one each from Germany (BV Borussia 09 Dortmund), Romania (CSM Bucuresti), Slovenia (RK Krim Mercator) and Norway (Vipers Kristiansand) in the knockout phase of the competition.
There are not many changes from last season’s top sides, with only one from the ones that played in the quarter-finals, Buducnost BEMAX, being eliminated early, after conceding 11 losses, tying their worst campaign. Judging from last season’s group phase, CSKA made the largest drop, after securing 23 points in the group phase last season, to only 16 points this time around, while Esbjerg nearly doubled their amount of points, from 12 to 23.
