Handball isn’t always fun: Berlin’s captain Paul Drux is trying to assert himself against Nantes pivot Théo Monar.
Foto: imago images/Nordphoto
Will this be a successful season, or will 2021/2022 threaten to find its way into the Berlin handball chronicle as the messed-up season? On the one hand, Füchse Berlin are in an excellent second place in the Bundesliga, which makes fans dream of participating in the Champions League next autumn. On the other hand, after the DHB Cup in December, the capitals also bowed out in their favorite European League competition on Tuesday evening: the foxes lost 30:33 to the top French club HBC Nantes, who had already won the first leg 25:24 and will now meet Bundesliga leaders SC Magdeburg in the quarter-finals.
Foxes captain Paul Drux, who won the European League with the club in 2015 and 2018, was disappointed after the match on Tuesday evening: “The defeat is certainly not a shame, we played against a team that will probably be in the next year Champions League will play, “said the 27-year-old soberly to “nd”: “But of course it hurts. We wanted to go through after losing the first leg by just one goal. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for now.”
Drux had every reason to quarrel: After all, it had gone very, very well for the Berliners for almost 45 minutes. For the first time, their home arena was completely open to spectators again, 5281 people came to the Max-Schmeling-Halle on a rainy Tuesday evening and made a lot of noise. It helped: in the first half, the Berliners struggled in defense with Nantes pivot Théo Monar (six goals in total) and Kiril Lazarov’s throws from behind. The legendary North Macedonian goalscorer (1709 goals in the national team) is very difficult to defend despite his 42 years. He scored five goals for Nantes on Tuesday despite being given a 15-minute rest break early in the second half by the coach.
Despite the class of the opponent, the Berliners managed to go into the break with a small lead at half-time – it was 15:14 after 30 minutes. Two goals were needed to advance. At the latest when Mijajlo Marsenić scored in the 45th minute after a nice pass from Fabian Wiede at the circle to make it 25:22, confidence spread among the Berliners: the turnaround seemed feasible.
But five bad minutes followed, in which Nantes scored five times, but the Berliners didn’t score at all: 25:27 it was suddenly 25:27. Nine minutes remained. The Berliners stood up, but the guests from Brittany played the match safely to the end. They avoided any loss of possession on offense, instead scoring goals at will: from the wide, the middle and from the back. Because guest keeper Erik Nielsen also acted outstandingly and parried a total of 14 throws and a seven-meter throw, all efforts by Drux and Co. were in vain. This opponent was a size too big for the foxes that evening.
When the final signal sounded, the French danced for joy, while the foxes players said goodbye to their supporters dejectedly. »It was open for a long time, the level of the game was really high. We kept up for a long time, but in the end they deservedly won,” summed up Paul Drux. It remains to concentrate on the Bundesliga: “We still have nine games ahead of us. Maybe we’ll meet Nantes again in the next Champions League.«
Because TBV Lemgo Lippe was also eliminated after a 28:28 draw against the top Polish team from Płock (first leg 28:31), defending champion SC Magdeburg is the only German club in the quarter-finals of the European League. After a hard-fought 36:35 win over Sporting Lisbon, Magdeburg made it into the last eight. In the first leg, both clubs drew 29:29.
