Valladolid Go On with Away Victory

It was bitter for Vfl on Sunday evening in the Kölnarena, who went into the quarterfinal 2nd leg filled with optimism. Following the draw in Valladolid the week before, the semifinal was in sight but at the end of the match it was only the 300 Spanish fans who were smiling amongst the 16 359 fans in the Kölnarena. Valladolid gave it their all and played to their limit, Gummersbach didn’t show what they are made of. Three days after the spectacular win against Flensburg, they just couldn’t find their way into the game.

The fans flocked to the Kölnarena in Sunday evening and saw a dramatic final pahse to the match, where everything was possible. In the 54^th minute the Spaniard Marcos Antonio got a two minute suspension, which Momir Ilic made up for by scoring two goals.

Thrilling last minutes

The clock in the hall showed 56:06 and the score stood at 31:31, the match victory seemed to be set up but the Valladolid coach, Juan Carlos Pastor took a time-out and made one final tactical change which swung the match. Following a 7m throw by Roberto Garcia, Narcisse missed a shot and goalkeeper Goran Stojanovic gave the ball away to the Spanis opponenets. He made a daring long pass, which ended in Eric Gull’s hands. The Argentinian (10 goals) crowned his superior performance throughout the match. He showed that even if he is weak in defence he is quick and can run back when he is needed. 55 seconds before the end of the match Ruben Garabaya, circled by 4 Gummersbach players, managed to get passed them and score a goal, making it 31:33, which sent everyone into shock and was the final bullet fro the Gummersbach team. Alexis Alvano managed to score a goal but the Valladolid left winger scored a goal from a critical position, which meant it was all over. There were discussions about whether it was a foul from the attacking player.

Valladolid dominated the game

It was already clear in the first half that Valladolid would play from the circle and the back court. The Vfl defence was not confident from the beginning and showed weaknesses, despite of this it was 8:5 after 8 minutes. The guest with the excellent playmaker Vaguero Rodriguez found the gaps in defence and bought the score back up to 11:13. Stojanovic saved a penalty to bring his team back into the game and the Gummersbach players had a strong phase but Alen Muratovic kept Valladolid in the match. It was only in the middle of the second half that the Spaniards crept forward by three goals, Gislasson tried to solve the problems with a team-time-out but the Gummersbach team was out of ideas. Alvanos appeared to be out of power, there were problems in the left side of defence Eric Gull just kept on scoring. Vfl battled to 24:26, 26:28, 27:29 and 29:31 but then they had to accept defeat.

Juan Carlos Pastor (CBM Valladolid):
Both matches were close. Both teams played well today, they are very similar. It is a huge honour for me to be in the last four teams of the Champions League.

Alfred Gislason (VfL Gummersbach):
It was a well deserved victory for Valladolid. They were the better team today and I am obviously disappointed but that’s sports. We were chasing their lead for the majority of the match and we couldn’t find our rhythm, we were too slow in attack and we didn’t play precisely enough.  But we did have a chance in the last minute but our wing players weren’t strong enough.