In the final games before the international games HBC Nantes and Barcelona clashed in a tie. Füchse Berlin couldn’t keep up with Dinamo Bucharest’s pace and RK Pelister cheered for a welcome win.
While the victory streak of the red and blues fell, Barcelona still finished the first half of the league stage unbeaten. With the spanish giant five goals ahead with 25 minutes to go the away win was within reach but Nantes produced a good sprint with Aymeric Minne and Julien Bos in charge of the scoring to equalize, 30–30.
The final minute had a lot of back and forth, Blaz Janc found the net for another equal situation and the teams could agree on one point each.
Füchse Berlin relied heavily on the power of Lasse Andersson and the creativity of Mathias Geisel. What could be enough against many opponents didn’t suffice towards Dinamo Bucharest who managed to pursue a broad offensive range. Dinamo trailed by one goal at half time but took over the momentum completely with a 7-1 period to the finish line. Haniel Langaro and Yoav Lumbroso stood out with five goals each for the winning team.
Fredericia´s two point in the last run wasn’t enough of a boost for repeated success. Instead Pelister ruled with splendid goalkeeping from Nikola Mitrevski and a solid defensive performance overall. A red card for Bogdan Radivojevic somewhat rocked Pelister´s boat but Zarko Peshevski and Oussama Hosni remained in energetic mode for the deciding hits.
– We executed the the game plan well, stay focused even when Fredericia were making it difficult for us. Important win for us, historic first in the EHF Champions League. We’ll carry this momentum to our future games, said Pelister coach Zvonko Shundovski to eurohandball.com.
Champions League is back in the calendar in three weeks time.
Champions League
Group A, Dinamo Bucharest–Fuchse Berlin 38–31 (18–19)
Fredericia HK–RK Pelister 23–25 (12–9)
Group B, HBC Nantes–Barcelona 31–31 (14–17)