Sport Handball Champions League
Magdeburg after a bad decision and a seven-meter thriller in the Final Four
As of: 02:49 a.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes
At the end of an incredible handball evening: Magdeburg’s coach Bennet Wiegert
Source: dpa/Ronny Hartmann
The handball players of SC Magdeburg continue to dream of the title quadruple. After the success in the seven-meter throw against Kielce from Poland, the defending champions are in the Final Four of the Champions League. As in the DHB Cup final, it was substitute goalkeeper Hernandez who secured the success.
With luck, skill and a strong goalkeeper, defending champion SC Magdeburg has once again reached the Final Four of the Champions League in Cologne. In the second leg, the Elbestadt team beat the Polish handball champions Kielce 23:22 (11:13), thus making up for the deficit from the first leg (26:27) and prevailing 4:3 in the subsequent seven-meter throw.
Things had already become turbulent at the end of the regular season. The Poles appeared free at the circle with three seconds left, but were awarded a free throw by the referees. Several players and also coach Talant Dushebayev then went onto the hall floor and kneeled at the referees who had whistled away their advantage. But all the theatrics were in vain.
The best Magdeburg shooter was the Icelander Omar Ingi Magnusson with six goals. This means that four titles in one season are still possible for Magdeburg after the DHB Cup and Super Globe.
Magdeburg made an unusually large number of technical errors and initially trailed by three goals. As in the first leg, the visitors’ 5-1 defense caused problems for the defending champions and the attacking game didn’t get going. “Our problem is not defense; in attack: more calm, more control,” demanded SCM coach Bennet Wiegert during the timeout. Magdeburg worked its way into the game, but didn’t take the lead until the break.
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After the break, the SCM turned the game around with four goals in a row from Magnusson. However, the game remained close, Magdeburg benefited from Sergey Hernandez’s saves, but were unable to break away because the aggressive Polish defense continued to allow little. Being outnumbered, the SCM finally managed to take the first two-goal lead they needed to advance (21:19/52nd minute).
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In the final minute, the SCM played down the clock with a one-goal lead, but Michael Damgaard’s throw didn’t go into the goal. Because Kielce no longer equalized, the game went to a penalty throw. Magdeburg was already on the verge of elimination there too. But Hernandez saved two of the five throws, including the last one from the Poles. Only after the subsequent shoot-out and the third seven-meter penalty saved by Hernandez did Magdeburg reach the Final Four.
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Ahead of the successful team from Saxony-Anhalt, the Danes from Aalborg HB had already qualified on Wednesday with a 33:28 win against Telekom Veszprem. On Thursday, THW Kiel has to make up for a 30:39 deficit against Montpellier HB (6:45 p.m./Dyn). After a 30:22 score in the first leg, FC Barcelona welcomes Paris St. Germain (8:45 p.m.).
