Hansen hopes to farewell Champions League with first title

While Karabatic does not have one last chance at winning the trophy, as PSG bowed out of the trophy race in the quarter-finals, Hansen will have the opportunity to win his first ever EHF Champions League title this weekend, with Aalborg.  

This attempt will be his eighth. Aalborg are the fourth club with which Hansen will try to win the EHF Champions League, after Paris, Barça and AG Kobenhavn. He played the EHF Champions League final twice before, in 2010 with Barça and 2017 with Paris. But he has never lifted the trophy — at least, yet.

What one will remember about Hansen as a handball player will be, first and foremost, that he was a fantastic offensive player. Ahead of his last EHF FINAL4, Hansen scored 1,125 goals in the competition overall, making him the fourth top scorer in the EHF Champions League to date.

“Mikkel is one of the greatest offensive players ever. He makes perfect decisions, especially in seven-against-six. He can find solutions in every situation, even the most complicated ones. He’s one of those players that deserve the best farewell possible,” says Barça coach Carlos Ortega.

Hansen remains the player that has scored the most goals in a single EHF Champions League season, as he netted 141 times in 2015/16. That year was the second time he took the top scorer award after 2012, when he scored 98 times for Copenhagen.

This season — his 16th in the competition — Hansen was again an important player for his team, as he scored 68 times in the EHF Champions League alone. “He’s the same as he’s ever been — never satisfied, always demanding with his teammates, always pushing everybody to be better. Even though the young players have played more this season, Mikkel still remains an important part of our team,” says his teammate in both the club and national team Henrik Møllgaard.

But according to the Aalborg left back, the quest for the trophy has nothing to do with Hansen specifically. “It would be nice for him to win it with us, because it would mean a lot to him. But no one’s going to bed tonight thinking about Mikkel Hansen winning the Champions League” says Møllgaard. “I’m sure everyone will want to win it for the club and for the team.”

His opponents on Saturday afternoon, SC Magdeburg, freely admit that Hansen has been “a fantastic player,” but for Hansen to lift the trophy on Sunday night, the German side would have to be eliminated in the semi-final on Saturday, so none are keen for that to happen.

Magdeburg coach Bennet Wiegert sums it all up: “I liked Mikkel Hansen so much as a handball player and I’m so proud I have the chance to play against him one more time. But we want the trophy and it’s not our problem if it’s his last chance or not, sorry.”

But despite the SC Magdeburg coach understandably not wanting the Aalborg superstar to depart on a high, all EHF FINAL4 participants at least agree on two things: That Hansen will leave a big mark on handball, and also that for him to say goodbye to club competitions in such a setting feels like the perfect farewell. As Jicha says: “It’s somehow a fairytale that he gets to end his club career here at LANXESS arena.”