After the first leg of the EHF Champions League Women play-offs last weekend, it is decision time this Saturday and Sunday, with the reverse legs to decide the three remaining quarter-final tickets.
FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria will need a strong comeback on the home court following a seven-goal defeat at Krim Mercator Ljubljana, while Metz Handball could sneak through provided they keep the eight-goal advantage taken in the first leg of the play-offs against BV Borussia 09 Dortmund.
The tightest race for a quarter-finals berth is the showdown between last year’s runners up Brest Bretagne Handball and Danish side Odense Håndbold, who won the first leg by the slightest of margins, 25:24.
PLAY-OFFS, SECOND LEG
FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria (HUN) vs Krim Mercator Ljubljana (SLO)
Saturday 2 April, 16:00 CEST, live on EHFTV
First leg: 26:33
- in Ljubljana, second-half dominance secured a 33:26 win for the Slovenian side
- Jovana Risovic boasted a 41 per cent save efficiency for Krim, while her teammate Ana Gros, who joined Krim from CSKA prior to the play-offs, netted 13 times
- in the same competition stage last season, Krim defeated CSKA at home in the first leg, 25:20, but failed to reach the quarter-final after a 27:21 loss away
- FTC have never won by more than six goals in the current tournament. In the group phase, they took their biggest victory at home against Podravka, 33:27
- the winner of this tie will face defending champions Vipers Kristiansand in the quarter-final
Without good and strong training there would not be the result we achieved on Saturday. Now we need to correct the mistakes and show an even better performance in Erd. There is a sense of some tension in the locker room, but positive. We are looking forward to the match. We can take advantage of the difference from Saturday, but we need to think from scratch. We have to go for the win and the result will come by itself. There is no room for calculations, so we will play on everything from the first to the last minute.
We must not judge the game by the result. Our goal must be to be able to look each other in the eye and be satisfied with our performance after the final whistle. We want to show that we are rightly in the play-offs and we want to build on the good Champions League times of the group phase.
