Clear win for Szeged; Sporting stumble at Eurofarm Pelister
Round 4 of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League threw off on Wednesday night in Zagreb, where the hopes of the hosts were already shattered in the first half. In the end, OTP Bank - PICK Szeged took a clear and well-deserved win to pull equal on six points on the group B table with leaders Barça.
In group A, Eurofarm Pelister ended their series of defeats with an impressive performance against Sporting CP, where Pavle Atanasievikj scored for 24:24 five seconds before the end. Fredericia lost their fourth match, but were on an almost equal level with Paris for 45 minutes.
I am proud of the team tonight. Each EHF Champions League game is tough, and we stayed focused on defence and attack. We worked and analysed a lot the playing style of Fredericia, and we decided to play seven-against-six. Our attack with two line players was efficient.
We won a point as big as a house. We have finally broken a burden that we have been carrying for a long time. I think my players were true fighters who believed until the end. We played against a very strong opponent.
It was a very hard game for us in a great ambience here in Bitola. Congrats to Eurofarm Pelister for the draw. We had the game in our hands. After +3 at 59 minutes we lost some easy balls and Eurofarm Pelister scored three times. This is Champions League and everything is possibile. [Filip] Kuzmanovski and [Nikola] Mitrevski were amazing in the first half, then our defence played much better, but some crazy mistakes at the end.
Happy about the win! We were aware that if we want to achieve big things we've got to find a way to deliver on the road. Zagreb showed good character, made it difficult for us, but I'm very proud of my guys and how they looked in those key moments, eventually taking a well-deserved win here today.
Well-deserved win for them here today. We've got to analyse the game in order to see and realise what happened. Second part of the first half was the key, as we allowed them to open the gap. In the second half we looked better, but simply weren't able to close it and get back into the game.
