Füchse and Szeged break the 40-goal barrier, Montpellier also win
New season of EHF Champions League Men resumed on Thursday. In the opening matches current finalists Füchse Berlin celebrated in Belgrade after a clinical performance against RK Partizan AdmiralBet, while OTP Bank - PICK Szeged also scored over 40 goals to beat IFK Kristianstad. The closest match was played in Bucuresti where Montpellier Handball were made to work hard against Dinamo.
Congratulations to Berlin, the players, the coach. They play amazing. The last season and this season they started to play very good handball. It was very difficult for us. In the first half we lost a lot of balls in attack and then it's a fast team with very good players, with quality. It was impossible for us, and the second half was for nothing. We have to improve a lot to fight more, and we will do it.
First of all, I would say thanks for this warm welcome to me and my whole family. Since yesterday we were feeling like at home. It was a privilege to play in front of these fans. We knew that Partizan are a new team, so we were prepared for them, and I think we played very concentrated from the beginning. Maybe our experience in those matches made the difference today, and I would like just to say to the whole team of Partizan that they should keep their heads up. There are games that are coming, so I wish them all the best, and I hope we see you soon.
I'm mostly happy with what I saw on the court tonight. We are back in the Champions League, and our supporters created an amazing atmosphere in the arena. We are in a difficult situation, with several injuries, but I am still very pleased with the performance of our young players. We also had the opportunity to give some of our academy players valuable minutes, and they performed really well. Szeged have a bright future.
Congratulations to Szeged. They played a really good game. For us, it has been a fantastic experience to compete at this level. As for the match, we didn't start well, and our opponent was simply better than us tonight. Still, it was a good game.
Good first half, but especially in defence. In attack we found some solutions to score, but finally we didn't realize what we found. In the first half we had nine goals in 20 shots. With 45 per cent efficiency is impossible to do something... Against these kind of teams, theoretically this is defeat for us, but also in the practice it was defeat because it's not possible to miss too many shots like we missed.
I'm really happy to have won here for our return to the Champions League, we know that this group is very tough, very balanced. It was important for us to start with an away win. I'm proud of the battle we fought throughout the match.
