Before the seven-meter penalty: SC Magdeburg (dark jerseys) against KS Kielce
Goalkeeper in the spotlight: During the second leg of the quarter-final match in the men’s handball Champions League on May 1st between KS Kielce and Bundesliga table leaders SC Magdeburg, there was more focus on the players between the goal posts than is usual in sports. Magdeburg’s Spanish national goalkeeper Sergey Hernández Ferrer is currently missing his weaker replacement partner, Nikola Portner. Methamphetamine was detected in the Swiss case during a doping control in April. He is banned at least until the B test. On the KS Kielce side, Andreas Wolff has repeatedly found his way into the headlines, as rumors of a move to the Elbe by the DHB keeper are increasing.
The goalkeepers were crucial in the Getec Arena. Even if Wolff initially sat on the bench for the guests. The Croatian Sandro Mestric started instead. Kielce had taken a small lead from the first leg, a week earlier they narrowly won at home with 27:26 (14:13). Last season they had to admit defeat in the final against Saxony-Anhalt. Kielce wanted revenge, the strategic symbol of this was their offensive coverage, with which Magdeburg initially had problems, but benefited from the fact that the wingers Lukas Mertens and Tim Hornke were able to accommodate their attempts. Wolff, on the other hand, had exactly one action in the first 30 minutes: In the 28th minute he came on the plate, saved Ómar Ingi Magnússon’s penalty and took his place on the bench again. The score was 13:11 for the guests at half time. The SCM was therefore under a lot of pressure, but they had the savior who had already registered their performance: Hernández already had a catch rate of 37 percent in the first round, which he would increase to over 40 percent after the break.
The second half began with a seven-meter shootout, interrupted by some flow of play: Magnússon converted three free throws, Hernández saved one – all within four minutes. But then the always stoic Wolff saw through Magdeburg’s Icelanders and stopped his next attempts.
“This is our time, that’s what we’re here for,” said handball’s Jürgen Klopp, Bennet Wiegert, who was now accurately styled, motivated his team during the time-out in the 25th minute, and it almost looked as if the SCM was still coming to the necessary second goal lead, which would have been enough to advance. After a tough last minute it was 23:22 and a seven-meter throw, i.e. Hernández against Wolff. Both of them saved two of the first five attempts, but Hernández took the next one, while Magnússon was able to overcome Wolff again. If Hernández and Wolff soon find themselves in the same club, they should feel safe at the back.
With this victory, the ten-time GDR and two-time West German champions qualify for the Final Four tournament in Cologne in June. Aalborg AB Håndbold is also there. The team also reversed a first-leg defeat against Veszprém, but won in regular time with a little less thrill with 33:28 (18:14), after the first game had gone to the Hungarians with a one-goal difference. At Aalborg, too, there is currently a lot of talk about changing trees: the playmaker of the German national team, Juri Knorr, will leave his club, the Rhein-Neckar Löwen, in 2025. Most likely destination: the Danish top team. After the editorial deadline, it was decided on Thursday evening whether THW Kiel and Paris Saint-Germain would make it into the final four tournament despite large mortgages. Montpellier won the first leg against Kiel by nine goals and Barcelona against PSG by eight goals.
One station deeper in the European club competition, the semi-final participants have been determined since Tuesday. Three of them are German teams: the Rhein-Neckar Löwen, who are currently unlucky in the Bundesliga, the SG Flensburg-Handewitt and the Füchse from Berlin, who hardly think they have any chance of winning the championship title after their defeat against Melsungen last weekend. The Romanians from Dinamo Bucharest complete the table of the last four.
