Home teams looking to defend first-leg cushions
The EHF Champions League Women 2025/26 quarter-final line-up will be completed this weekend, as the second-leg matches of the play-offs take place. The aggregate winners of the four pairings will progress to the next stage and join Györi Audi ETO KC, Metz Handball, Brest Bretagne Handball and CSM Bucuresti, who secured direct quarter-final spots from the group phase.
I am happy that we came home from Dortmund with a victory, but it is clear that we want to do the same at home one more time. We are stronger when our supporters are behind us, so I hope we will be successfull on Saturday. We want to be in the last eight, and we need to take one more step for this.
In the first leg, we did a lot of tactical things well, but in the end, we missed too many shots. Obviously, we can’t let that happen again. In the closing phase, goalkeeper Laura Glauser saved every other ball. We lost the first leg by six goals, and it certainly won’t get any easier for us away from home, but we still want to see what’s possible.
We have taken a step forward, but I think the tie against Ikast is still 50:50. They showed their potential as a team in the first half, and we struggled to defend their fast breaks. Ikast are a very tough team defensively, and it's important not to lose our composure in attack. I hope our fans at the Teraplast Arena will help us qualify for the next round.
It’s shaping up to be a very exciting clash where everything is at stake after the close match in Ikast. When you face each other again so soon, there’s a lot to learn from it. We certainly feel that we’ve become much wiser. We’re looking forward to the match and expect a fantastic atmosphere for the decisive encounter.
Even though we are leading with 11 goals after the first leg, you can never say never. Of course, Podravka need to show a lot to win at our home, but we have to put ourselves in a good position. We still need and want to perform well, so we are preparing for this match like any other.
It will be a difficult task and a demanding challenge since it is an away match. We saw and are still looking at what we did wrong in the first match. Analysing the match, I cannot help but feel that, regardless of the major oscillations in the game, such as soft defense with a lot of missed shots and technical errors, we had a good position with nine minutes left to make the result better.
I think it will be a match very similar to the one down there — full of tempo, duels and plenty of action at both ends. We go into the game with the aim of winning it, but if, towards the end, we find ourselves in a situation where it’s necessary to protect the aggregate lead, then the approach will of course be different. Naturally, we will do everything to win the tie overall, but for tomorrow’s match in isolation, the objective is, of course, also to win it.
We feel a sense of dissatisfaction after the first match, mainly because of our defence, and we definitely want to improve on that. We are not travelling to Denmark with our hands raised in surrender; we want to achieve a better result, and if we get the chance, even win. If we do win, we would like to do so by as many goals as possible, and we’ll see what that will be enough for.
