Group phase throws off with many top clashes all over Europe
After 20 qualification matches already played, the group phase of the EHF European League Men starts on Tuesday. Five former EHF Champions League winners and four more former winners of other European Cup competitions are part of the 32 clubs this season. All of them hope to book a ticket to the EHF Finals in Hamburg on 24/25 May 2025 – and 31 teams hunt defending champions SG Flensburg-Handewitt. Right in the first round, many top duels are scheduled – including old and new faces in the competition.
We are expecting a very difficult game. We know what GOG are on the handball map, not only in Denmark, but in Europe. They have played in the Champions League many seasons, we know their strengths. We saw how they beat Aalborg by a comfortable margin in the Danish league. There is nothing to add there. We will try and look at our strengths. We will give it our all and try and prepare a surprise for our first European game of the season.
I'm really looking forward to the game against Montpellier. I'm excited to see how many people they can fill the arena with, now that it's "only" the European League. They've been in the Champions League for so many years. So I hope they can fill the arena, because it's such a fun place to play. I've played there a few times in the Champions League and it's really been a lot of fun. That team has so much class, they're very skilled.
First of all we will focus on ourselves. This is the most important thing. We are aware that in this competition every team has a high quality. Lisbon were the winning team three years ago so for sure we have to show a very good game from our side.
We will go to Switzerland to win, the game will be intense. And the best team, I hope, will be us. Kadetten Schaffausen have really good defence and amazing players, who played a lot of important games in their career. So they have a lot of experience. They are good in one-on-one and in fast breaks.
We have this part of the season ahead of us, for which we prepared hard and we are looking forward to the start and in fact we can't wait for the first game on Tuesday. We have an extremely high-quality team from Vojvodina coming as our guests, which we really respect, but we are playing on our home field in front of our fans and it is certain that we want to win and only that thought must be in our heads.
We used to have exciting games with Benfica against Porto. I'm looking forward to the atmosphere in the hall. The team from Porto is of high quality and with the fans behind, it will certainly not be an easy task for us.
Ademar Leon are a club with great European history in handball. The Spaniards got off to an excellent start in the championship and are convincing with their solid game. We have been warned and will have to reach our limits to survive against Leon. I hope that our home crowd supports us accordingly, then we can score points against this top team.
