Women’s CL: Croatians in good form

Five women’s CL-participants Podravka, Nürnberg, Metz, Lublin and Hypo took part at two preparation tournaments in Germany (“Ladies-Cup” in Schmelz) and Luxembourg (“Tournoi de Champions” in Bascharage) this weekend. Croatian champion, Podravka Koprivnica, gave the best impression who won the tournament in Luxemburg.

Especially Lublin and Hypo – they played in Schmelz – still have lot of work to do, while Nürnberg and Metz made some good results. Hypo seemed to perform badly with only one victory in three matches. Gunnar Prokop’s club made a draw against the German Bundesliga runner-up, Bayer Leverkusen that won the tournament at the end. After a 17:20 against French champion Metz, Hypo could only play for position 5/6 against Lublin. At the end, Hypo won 27:16 against the Polish champions.

German success in Schmelz

The German champions, Nürnberg lost some key-players during the summer, but made a good start with two victories against Romanian Cluj-Napoca (29:25) and Lublin (39:29).

“We are still alive,” said coach Herbert Müller, although his team lost the semi-final against Metz 15:25. In the placement-match 3/4 another 27:22 victory followed against Cluj.

Metz reached the final although the French team lost in first round against Leverkusen. In the final, Bayer – runner-up in the German Championship only by two goals in the finals against Nürnberg – was better and won 22:18.

The tournament in Luxemburg was exciting, especially the semi-finals. The new team of the 2003 German Champions Trier, played well and lost in the first round only against the Danish team of Copenhagen (with the recently voted World Handballer of the Year, Nadine Krause), but won against Podravka Koprivnica and the French Besancon. In the semi-final, the match has been decided by 7-metre throws. Koprivnica had the better end with a 22:20.

Convincing Koprivnica

In the other semi-final, Besancon have surprisingly beaten Copenhagen 20:19.As the Trier team lost too much power in the first matches, it was easy for Copenhagen to win the placement match for the third place by 23:9.

The final was also decided early, as Koprivnica was in very clear lead from the beginning. At the end, the Croatian champions celebrated a 35:25 victory –good result for the forthcoming CL qualification matches.