DAY REVIEW: Kiel and Barça take commanding wins, Palicka saves the day for Paris
Kiel - in group A - and Barça - in group B - took important steps towards a direct qualification to the quarter-finals, thanks to commanding home wins. Early in the evening, THW inflicted Eurofarm Pelister their twelfth defeat in as many games (29:23) while, a little bit later, Barça also easily cruised past FC Porto (40:33). Barça could book their direct ticket as soon as next week, when they play in Magdeburg.
In the meantime, Paris Saint-Germain and Veszprém can still hope for a similarly successful fate. The French team remains in contention after its victory, while the Hungarian team, in Group B, prevailed against GOG.
It is always a great pleasure to play in our hall with these spectators. We showed two faces today: We worked hard in the first half and were perhaps a little more relaxed in the second half.
It was a deserved victory for THW Kiel from the very first minute. We knew what kind of team we were playing against today. And yet I wonder why we didn't go into this game more focused. We have to play to our maximum right from the start in order to be successful in the EHF Champions League.
The atmosphere was amazing tonight; it's always important to have the fans behind us because they give us power. We faced a tough rival tonight, and it was a real fight for 60 minutes. So happy to secure more points tonight.
To play without Nicolas Tournat is really tough, even though we had good actions. We had to play with Dylan (Nahi) at the line and against their defence it’s almost impossible. I’m disappointed of course but also very grateful to my players for their game.
We produced two completely different halves. GOG are a team that will punish you when you make a mistake. At the beginning of the second half, they did that and thanks to their fast play, they were able to get back into the game. It was a fantastic experience to play in front of such an atmosphere, I will definitely remember this match.
In the first half, we played terribly, we missed a lot of chances. I am a little bit happy because we started in better shape after the break. Both our defence and attack came together, and the performance came in the goal as well. We had our chances to get a point, but it did not work out.
The match started with a lot of pace, with a lot of goals, but we took the lead after the first 15 minutes and we could play our game. We kind of threw away the last 15 minutes, because we were clearly up in the score, but we can’t afford to do that in such a competition.
It’s always special to me playing at Palau. I’m really happy for the opportunity I have now in Porto but I have a lot of memories here. They were better today. Champions League teams punish mistakes too much and that happened today.
Round 12 - Thursday action
