Nantes upset Magdeburg; Barça in MOTW and Aalborg both win

• Barça thanked their MOTW win in Zagreb to several crucial saves by goalkeeper Emil Nielsen and their strong offensive performance, keeping their winning streak alive
• Barça youngster Petar Cikusa was named Player of the Match after scoring five goals, while Zagreb’s Filip Glavaš was the best scorer of the MOTW with nine
• Barça remain the only team in the competition that has not dropped a point yet
• Aalborg had to wait long to finally secure their second victory of the season, beating Szeged 29:28, with goalkeeper Fabian Norsten making nine saves overall
• Szeged missed a perfect opportunity to take one point when Sebastian Frimmel failed to convert a penalty in the last second of the game
• Nantes led for most of the match in Magdeburg and, helped by 10 Aymeric Minne goals, crowned their performance with a 32:28 win — their first victory in seven duels with the German side

GROUP B

MOTW: HC Zagreb (CRO) vs Barça (ESP) 29:31 (14:19)

Before the start of round 5, Barça were the only team with the maximum number of points, and they showed early in Zagreb that they wanted to keep their streak going. Propelled by Dika Mem and his four goals in the first 10 minutes, the defending champions were already up by four after 10 minutes (10:6). Their advantage even went up to eight goals in the 21st minute, but Miloš Kos and Filip Glavaš scored two both in the last 10 minutes of the first part to keep Zagreb in the game at 19:14. The hosts came back on the court with completely different intentions. Well better defensively, they quickly managed to come back within three and even had the opportunity to close down their deficit to two goals. But Emil Nielsen stopped Filip Glavaš’ fastbreak and put the title holders back on track. While Ante Grbavac did his best to stop Barça from breaking away again, there was just no way Barça were going to be held off indefinitely. And, slowly but surely, the Spanish side put themselves out of danger, with Petar Cikusa and Melvyn Richardson increasing their team’s advantage to six goals with 10 minutes left to play. Even though Zagreb managed to come back within one in the dying seconds of the game, Barça remained calm and had Aleix Gómez sealing the deal with a couple of seconds left to play.

Aalborg Håndbold (DEN) vs OTP Bank - PICK Szeged (HUN) 29:28 (16:15)

The first part of the game was not exactly what you would call a goalkeepers’ party. By the time Szeged’s coach Michael Apelgren took the first timeout of the evening, in the 14th minute, no goalkeeper had made more than one save. These strong offensive performances led to a lot of goals and none of the two teams managed to clearly take the upper hand. Actually, neither Aalborg or Szeged were able to take a bigger advantage than two goals before minute 25, when the hosts finally broke away on the scoreboard. Thomas Arnoldsen and Kristian Bjørnsen were elemental for the Danish side, scoring respectively three and four. But Szeged, with a last-second goal by Borut Mackovsek, were still in the race, only down by one at the break (16:17). Both teams remained close to each other for the whole duration of the second half, but just as they had done at the end of the first part of the game, Aalborg took a three-goal lead and never let it go. If Roland Mikler delivered an excellent performance for Szeged, Fabian Norsten was the key player for Aalborg with decisive saves for the hosts. It was after one of them that Mads Hoxer gave Aalborg their three-goal lead back in the 43rd minute. And every time Szeged were closing in too much, Norsten was there to prevent the Hungarian side from making the score level. And the Swedish goalkeeper even had luck on his side, when Sebastian Frimmel missed a penalty in the last second, meaning Aalborg could celebrate their second victory of the season, their first since round 1.

SC Magdeburg (GER) vs HBC Nantes (FRA) 28:32 (16:15)

After 10 minutes in the game, Magdeburg coach Bennet Wiegert took a first timeout. “Das ist Champions League!” he shouted, not convinced by the performance of his players. But in the first part of the game, Nantes looked unstoppable, with Ayoub Abdi scoring incredible goals and Aymeric Minne running all over the court — and scoring. Still, the hosts slowly found their rhythm. Their defence found ways to stop taking goals and Lukas Mertens was clinical on fastbreaks. The left wing levelled the score in the 24th minute for the first since the early seconds of the game. And just before the break, Gisli Kristjansson converted a pass from Ómar Ingi Magnusson to put SCM on top, 16:15. What Nantes had failed to do in the first half, they did in the first quarter of the second half: Powered by Aymeric Minne, well helped by captain Valero Rivera, the French side scored four unanswered goals between minutes 37 and 41 for a four-goal advantage: 22:18, the biggest lead of the game so far. And once the momentum was on their side, Nantes never let it go, even though Ómar Ingi Magnusson netted seven times in total. And to secure the win, Aymeric Minne scored twice in the last minute to finish with nine goals, the best scoring performance of the evening. The result marked Nantes first-ever win over Magdeburg: the French side had lost five of their previous six meetings, and had only earned a draw once, in an EHF Cup match in March 2013.

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