DAY REVIEW: Kiel win the group, PSG secure the third place
The battle for the top spot between THW Kiel and Aalborg Håndbold in group A of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League was settled early with THW's dominant victory against HC Zagreb in the final round of the group phase. The contest for third place remained a three-way duel until the final minutes of the last round.
Ultimately, Paris Saint-Germain retained the third position behind Aalborg by defeating OTP Bank - PICK Szeged at home. Industria Kielce put up a fierce fight at Aalborg but ultimately they settled for one point and fourth place ahead of Zagreb and Szeged.
Pelister gave us a good fight. We had seen a lot of videos, but they were useless since Pelister came with a different team. Still we are proud of our fight, we made an entertaining game and thank you to the spectators that came for this last game, it was perfect.
I am proud of our young team today, we had a lot of young Macedonians on the field today, hopefully they will be part of our national team in the future. Handball is the number one sport in Macedonia, and we will keep on to work for a better team both in our team and the national team. We had prepared for a lot of different situations, but Kolstad played better than we saw on the videos.
We are very happy and proud to have finished first in this tough group. A big thank you also goes to the spectators today, the atmosphere was fantastic once again. I'm particularly pleased for my young colleague Magnus Bierfreund, who played the last few minutes and made two really great saves.
We knew that THW Kiel had a great team and that they could play excellent handball. We travelled to Kiel today without four key players, which made the task even more difficult for us. We came up with something new for Kiel in training. That worked very well in the first half, but not so well in the second half.
We can be happy to be third, particularly after the last two games we made. We started the game as we started this last two matches but then we achieved to play our game and system. Szeged have good players, it was difficult.
Everything was possible during most of the match. We had the advantage, but Paris changed defence in 5-1 and we don’t achieve to play against. We missed easy goals and we have problems on the line player position.
We played a fantastic handball game in an extremely good atmosphere in our arena. Of course, we are happy about the point. In the end we kept fighting and we are happy about the second place in the group and that we are ready for the quarter final.
Today was a very special game for us to show that we can play good against as good a team as Aalborg. Of course they were without key players but it was special for our young players to have the opportunity to have this experience.
Wednesday's action in round 14
