Three teams eye early quarter-final ticket

EHF / Danijela Vekić, Ida Hummeluhr

02 February 2023, 12:00

After a one-week break, the EHF European League Women group phase returns with round 4, which consists of the reverse fixtures from the previous round. Thüringer HC, Sola HK and Ikast Håndbold, the three unbeaten teams so far, have a chance to book an early quarter-final ticket if they win their respective clashes. While other spots are still open, HC Podravka Vegeta and Fana will try to claim their first win of the season to stay in the race for the knock-out phase.

GROUP A

BV Borussia 09 Dortmund (GER) vs ES Besancon Feminin (FRA)
Sunday 5 February, 14:00 CET, live on EHFTV

BV Borussia 09 Dortmund defeated Besancon by 30:27 after a seven-goal outing by Meret Ossenkopp
if Besancon win, they will keep their group leader status with two rounds to go; Dortmund have a chance to move at least one place up with a win
the French side is the third most effective attack of the competition netting 98 goals in three matches for an average of 32.6 goals per game
Besancon right back Natalia Nosek: "Borussia, of course, are a really good team, they have good players who already got some experience in this kind of international competitions. The goal for this game is to start better than last time and look for other solutions."
Dortmund's Yara Ten Holte with 30 saves (33.3 per cent efficiency) is the third-best goalkeeper of the competition
the German side won at home against Leverkusen (35:27) while Besancon had a draw against Nantes in domestic league play
Dortmund coach Henk Groener: "We surprised Besançon a little bit in the first game, the first 15 minutes were almost perfect. We can take a lot of confidence from the first match, although we will need another great performance to win the game."

Molde Elite (NOR) vs Siófok KC (HUN)
Sunday 5 February, 16:00 CET, live on EHFTV

Molde must win to keep any quarter-final hopes alive after a three-game losing streak
after an opening defeat, Siófok got back on track and have two consecutive wins against Dortmund and Molde (30:22, two weeks ago)
Siófok are the second-best defence in the competition with only 76 goals conceded
Molde head coach Tor Odvar Moen: "There is one last chance to stay in the race in this group and that is by winning on Sunday. We will definitely grab that chance. We need some points on the board."
the youngest Obaidli sister, Mona, is Molde’s leading scorer and the competition’s third best scorer with 24 goals
Molde lost 30:23 to group C leaders Sola in their domestic competition; Siófok suffered a surprising defeat by Békéscsaba Elöre

GROUP B

Neptunes de Nantes (FRA) vs Fana (NOR)
Sunday 5 February, 14:00 CET, live on EHFTV

Nantes want to bounce back from the surprising 30:28 defeat against Fana two weeks ago
Fana celebrated their first win of the competition against Nantes and stayed in contention for the quarter-finals in their debut European League season
Aurora Kjellevold Hatle and Nathalie Hagman were the two side’s top scorers both in the competition and their last encounter
Nantes suffered a 30:23 defeat against Metz in the quarter-finals of the French cup; Fana lost to EHF Champions League titleholders Vipers Kristiansand in their domestic championship

We’ve played half of the #ehfel group phase and @ThueringerHC scored 100 goals 😯💪 Are they the best team? 🌟 pic.twitter.com/MhyThPxK2b
— EHF European League (@ehfel_official) January 31, 2023

Last match we got our first win in the EHF Europa League. It has given us the taste for more. Now we`re up against Nantes again. We`re not going there to defend anything, but chasing new points.

Erlend Lyssand

Coach, Fana

Our team has to focus on our own gameplay and we have to manage our defence on the level of the international elite teams, thus we can’t afford technical faults and we have to make good decisions, even at high-paced gameplay. It is not an easy task to do, but we can’t improve ourselves to a next level until we are able to master that.

János Gyurka

Coach, Motherson-Mosonmagyaróvári

There are 3 rounds left from the group phase and we know that every match is very important. At home, we have no other goal, but victory!

Alexandra Töpfner

Right wing, DVSC SCHAEFFLER

I think it will be an even game where the team with best focus and ready from start, takes the win. We've got to focus on our defence and get to play fast handball, but make the right assessments along the way. It's a good team we will face at their home arena and it's important that we have quality in what we are going to do in the game.

Lene Kristiansen Tveiten

Back, Sola HK

We are focused and have a consistently good atmosphere. We are all focused on these training sessions that we have left and preparing for Sunday and the goal is of course to fix the mistakes we made there. I believe that we are all ready to reach our first victory in Europe.

Nikolina Zadravec

Right wing, HC Podravka Vegeta

Two weeks ago, it was a big surprise that we could win against Paris 92. It's sure that they will prepare with double power to take revenge on us for that result, but I hope that we can play against them a very good game in Paris as well, and we can continue our way of what we started in the last two weeks.

Gábor Herbert

Coach, Praktiker-Vác