What a night in Kielce. What a thriller to remember. What a comeback. One week after their sensational 32:30 away win at Barcelona's Palau Blaugrana, Lomza Vive Kielce beat Barça for the second time in seven days: 29:27.
The defending champions dominated the match from the second minute to the 56th, but failed to score in the last eight minutes when the hosts scored the last six goals.
GROUP B:
Lomza Vive Kielce (POL) vs Barça (ESP) 29:27 (14:16)
- from the throw-off on, Barça were eager to take revenge for the home defeat, and led 5: 1 after only six minutes
- Kielce improved their attacking efficiency to draw level at 10-10, the first and only time before the break, but thanks to Luka Cindric and Aitor Arino (best scorer of his side by five goals in total), Barça struck back for a 16: 14 halftime lead
- in the first half, Barça's Gonzalo Perez de Vargas won the duel of the goalkeepers against Andreas Wolff, who had been the key factor last week
- eight minutes before the end, Barça seemed to be on course to win, leading 27:23, but then Kielce started their incredible comeback
- Alex Dujshebaev, Nicolas Tournat, Artsem Karalek and finally Arkadiusz Moryto turned the match around with two goals apiece
- Dika Mem missed a last chance to score for Barça 20 seconds before the end
Luka Cindric's sad comeback against his former club
Luka Cindric was ruled out by an injury for almost two months, but last week the Croatian playmaker made his comeback for Barça, and scored his first goal of the Champions League season - but his team lost.
In Kielce, where the 2017 Champions League winner played the 2018/19 season, he underlined his ambitions and importance. Thanks to his four goals, Barça were ahead for a long time but eventually lost again.
Now on 14 points, Kielce extended the gap to Barça to five points and made a huge step to skipping the play-offs. Man of the match was a Spaniard, who plays for Kielce: Alex Dujshebaev, who scored eight goals including the host's first lead after the 1:0 - at 28:27.
