Vive Tauron Kielce is still unbeaten in the Champions League as they took the victory against Aalborg Handball 27:25. Even though they had to manage without Julen Aginagalde and Tobias Reichmann (both injured), Polish champions arrived in Aalborg as favourites.
The beginning of the game saw quite a lot of action but not very many goals. It was a very good time for Sławomir Szmal who saved many throws, some of them in quite a spectacular way. His teammates, on the other hand, wasted his efforts by making mistakes in attack. Kielce were on the lead but they couldn’t make it to a bigger advance than 2 goals. They played well in defence but so did Aalborg. It took the Poles almost 20 minutes to gain 3-goal-lead (10:7). In the 22. minute Kielce bench and Kielce fans held their breaths as they saw Szmal trying to take over the ball to prevent Aalborg from a fastbreak, and running Tvedten bumped into him. In spite of protests of the hosts, Polish goalkeeper wasn’t punished in any way. By the end of the first half Aalborg changed their defence system from 5:1 to 6:0 and Kielce started having troubles. Additionally, Krzysztof Lijewski was sent off the court for 2 minutes for touching the ball with his leg. Short-handed Kielce had a chance to lost the lead entirely but Martin Larsen missed the goal and the halftime result was 13:12.
The second half didn’t began better for Kielce, as Denis Buntić wasted a penalty throw. It was a very good opportunity for Aalborg to equalize and so they did when very well playing Emil Berggren equalized at 13:13. Nevertheless, a couple of mistakes in attack and Kielce were back with 4-goal-lead (18:14, 39. minute). However, Poles wasted their own efforts either. In 40. minute Piotr Chrapkowski was suspended for 2 minutes but he overlooked this fact when he tried to join his mates in defence. As a result, Aalborg played in a double powerplay and Kielce lost 3 goals. After that, Kielce were maintaining 4- or 3-goal lead. In the 58. minute the advantage was 5 goals (27:22) but the Polish champions seemed to let go and Aalborg managed to score 3 more goals.
In the Polish team, it was a very good game of Krzysztof Lijewski who was the best scorer with 6 goals and did many good passes. Also both goalkeeper significantly contributed to the victory. In case of the Danish team, contribution of Emil Berggren has to be mentioned. He scored 7 times and was an outstanding player in his team.
Pick Szeged beat US Dunkerque 23:21.
STANDINGS:
| 1 | KS Vive Targi Kielce | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 155:136 | 10 | 19 | 0 |
| 2 | Pick Szeged | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 144:133 | 8 | 11 | 0 |
| 3 | AaB Handball | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 127:124 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| 4 | K. Schaffhausen | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 126:144 | 3 | -18 | 0 |
| 5 | Motor-Zntu-Zas | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 129:134 | 2 | -5 | 1 |
| 6 | Dunkerque HB | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 113:123 | 2 | -10 | -1 |
TEXT: MARTYNA USNARSKA
