Never Say Never in the Champions League!

Never say never in the Champions League. This was proved beyond any doubt in front of 1000 spectators in Südstadt on Friday evening. Hypo Niederösterreich managed to level Aalborg DH’s ten-goal lead from the first leg of the two teams´ quarterfinal tie and won 31-19. The 55-53 aggregate result means that Hypo Niederösterreich are in the semi-finals. Hypo took revenge for last year’s quarterfinals when the Danish team knocked them out.

No sign of triumph at the start

There were no signs of Hypo levelling the aggregate at the beginning of the game. Aalborg won 34-24 at home and the visitors supported by 90 enthusiastic fans took a 2-0 lead.

Hypo Niederösterreich took the lead for the first time at 5-4 after ten minutes, but Aalborg managed to keep up with the Austrians until the score was 11-10 with six minutes left from the first half. In the last minutes of the first half, the hosts managed to benefit from a couple of Aalborg suspensions to secure a 16-12 half-time lead.

At the beginning of the second half, Hypo capitalised other suspensions as well and the home side were soon leading 20-13. It was 13 minutes and 30 seconds into the second half, that Hypo equalised and took the all-important 10-goal lead for the first time at 24-14.

With two quick goals Aalborg managed to reduce the gap to 24-16, but Hypo increased the lead again – this time to 29-17. Aalborg came back to 29-19 and with one minute left Louise Mortensen had a scoring opportunity. A goal would have been enough for the guests to qualify for the semi-finals, but Mortensen missed the chance. The hosts could score the last two goals of the match and celebrated their place in the semi-finals.

Relief and frustration

After the match happiness and relief characterised the atmosphere among the Hypo players, officials and fans; while frustration could be felt on the Danish side.

”I really do not know how we managed to turn things around. We just knew that we could not play as badly twice within a week, as we did in the first match in Aalborg. We believed in our chances today, and we were rewarded for that,” said Hypo veteran, Ausra Fridrikas, former Slagelse player.

“I does not matter how we won; the victory was the only thing that counts tonight. We stood together, and we won – nothing else matters,” said Ryan Zinglersen, the Danish coach of Hypo.

His counterpart – and future colleague at Danish men’s club Skjern Håndbold – Jan Leslie was frustrated after his team’s defeat.

“It is a paradox, that there is a difference of 22 goals between two matches of the same teams within only five days. We are disappointed that Hypo can go on in the Champions League, as I feel that our team is considerably better. However, it was difficult to play, when we got six 2 minutes suspensions, and they only got two,” an angry Aalborg coach told eurohandball.com after the match.

Great Rotis

One of the key players of Hypo was Gabriela Rotis-Nagy. The future Slagelse player played badly in the first leg, but now she scored 12 goals. Aalborg’s top scorer was a former Hypo star. Tatjana Logvin scored 8 goals in spite of a close marking by Daniela Piedade during most of the match.