DAY REVIEW: Three home wins and biggest ever defeat for Porto
Aalborg Håndbold (against HC Zagreb) and OTP Bank-PICK Szeged (against Kolstad Handball) won their home matches in group A on Thursday. After their draw at Kielce yesterday and Kolstad's defeat, THW Kiel are finally the first team from group A to clinch their play-off berth – three rounds before the end, six more teams are atill in the race for five tickets to the knock-out stages in this group. But the first five, who all started the new year unbeaten, have increased the gap to Kolstad and Zagreb.
In group B, FC Porto conceded their biggest ever defeat in the Machineseeker Champions League against Telekom Veszprém, while SC Magdeburg turned the match against Plock around after the break to take their ninth consecutive win.
I think today we were better on the defensive end of the ball, keeping the defense tight and narrow. We were motivated to deliver a strong, physical game knowing how big and strong their players are, and I feel like we today proved that we can do the same. It was amazing to play in this arena here today, with all the fans backing us up, and really being our extra man out there.
We played a close game in Croatia and we were hoping for one more today. Unfortunately, we started off really bad allowing them to score many easy goals without a proper response from our side on the defensive end of the court. They outplayed us out there today, it's that simple really.
Credit goes to our opponents who are at the moment dealing with a lot of injuries, but still managed to make it a hard day for us. We fought brilliantly showing our best face out there today. Fans were also amazing today.
Szeged is a great team that deservedly won. The fans were amazing - it's a great feeling to play handball in such an atmosphere. We couldn't overcome the lack of our injured players, that's the story of today's game from our perspective.
We hoped to put some pressure on Veszprém, but already in the opening 15 minutes of the game we've already missed from too many clear looks. Against a team like Veszprém - you can't really afford to miss those shots if you want to win the game. We'll work on it, and try to improve in the games ahead.
I want to congratulate my players, because they delivered a great outing here today. Honestly, after a long national team break, and knowing how good Porto can be, I was a bit afraid of today's game. We started off well, our goalkeepers were fantastic. We all did a great job on both sides of the ball, and I'm very happy with the match overall.
It was important for us to start the second half better and we did that very well. We want to take this tailwind with us to Hanover.
It was a good first half and it's always difficult to play here. We made too many mistakes in the second half, which Magdeburg punished straight away. However, we've today played in an amazing atmosphere, and I'd like to thank everyone for that.
