Slagelse Hitting the High Notes 

If it was the choice of Lada coach Alexey Gumyanov, he would surely have chosen another time to meet Slagelse DT in Champions League Final. The Danish team reached top form for the most important period of the season: Slagelse won 30-23 at home and 28-26 away against Krim Ljubljana in the quarterfinals; they defeated Győri Audi ETO 31-25 and 30-22 in the semi-final; they have beaten EHF Cup finalists Ikast/Bording 34-29 and 39-30 in the Danish play-off semi-finals, and recently they defeated last year’s CL winners and Danish champions Viborg HK by 30-19 and 32-25 in the Danish league finals.

Going for the third title

Even though Slagelse have won the Women’s Champions League twice before – in 2004 and 2005 – head coach Anja Andersen does not deny the importance of the third victory.

“After losing the title last year, it would be the greatest achievement of my career to get it back with Slagelse,” she said.

As usual, however, Slagelse have great respect for the opponents:

“Lada are an interesting young team who like to play very fast and put a lot of pressure on the opponents’ defence. We like to do exactly the same, so this can make these two finals very exciting,” assistant coach Peter Bruun Jørgensen told Eurohandball.com.

“Lada have many players with great potential – not only the two most famous handballers, Liudmilla Postnova and Irini Bliznova, but they also have two great playmakers and two good left wingers. And when Bliznova was injured in the first leg of their quarterfinal tie with Viborg HK, Ekaterina Davydenko came in and did almost as well as Bliznova in the right back position. In general, I am impressed by the current potential of Russian women’s handball,” Peter Bruun Jørgensen added.

Experienced referees

The first leg of the finals will begin at 15.50 CET (18.50 local time) Sunday in Togliatti with Slovenian Darlo Repenzek and Janko Pozeznik refereeing. The second leg will take place exactly a week later, Sunday May 20th at 19.15 in Brøndby Hallen, Copenhagen, with the experienced French referees Gilles Bord and Olivier Buy in charge.