The French and German champions, the teams of Montpellier and HSV Hamburg allowed no surprises to happen on their visits to Belgrade and Skopje, and both went away with victories.
Montpellier beat Partizan in the almost empty arena “Pioneer” with 30:20 (16:7), in a game where the French were dominant and imposed their rhythm during the whole game. At a point they even had +14 (22:8), and until the end it was all routine. Primoz Prost had 18 saves for the French, while Kavticnik scored 6 goals. For Partizan, the goalkeepers Vasic and Radovanovic were the best figures.
In Skopje, Metalurg had a chance with a draw or victory against HSV Hamburg to achieve the 2nd place in the group, and to get “easier” opponent at the drawing, but the Germans made sure it won’t happen winning 25:23. This actually seemed achievable after the end of the first half which Metalurg won 14:12, but in the 2nd half the Germans showed why they are Bundesliga champions last year, and took control. First they managed to Metalurg scored only 1 goal in the first 10 minutes, and then they held a narrow but steady lead of 2-3 goals until the end of the game, with Metalurg only sometimes managing to get as close as to 1 goal. Darko Stanic finished the game with 13 saves, while Markovic scored 7 goals for the hosts and was most efficient. HSV was led by Domagoj Duvnjak and Hans Lindberg, both scoring 5 goals each.
