Superb Yoon

Thanks to HSV, the “German-Spanish Wednesday“ ended with a draw: after Gummersbach lost against Ciudad Real by 27:28, the team from Hamburg have beaten Portland San Antonio 32:29 (18:14).

The most outstanding player of the match was Kyung Shin Yoon with 15 goals.

“This was my day today. But I did not win the match on my own; my team helped me a lot. For me it’s more important to reach the semi-finals, than to score 15 goals. But I enjoyed the match very much,” said Yoon after the game.

With this victory the unbeaten HSV still have the best chances to go on to the next round with now 5 points. Portland have 2 points after losing in Zagreb and Hamburg and beating Flensburg.

More than 7,000 spectators attended the match and they did not only see the 15 Yoon goals, but again a very strong performance by Johannes Bitter (19 saves). The HSV goalkeeper was the match winner against Zagreb a week ago.

However, Portland had the better start, leading until the score of 7:6. Then HSV found the right pace and turned the match in within six minutes from 6:7 to 12:8. Due to a concentrated attacking play, the Germans increased the gap to 16:10 before Portland’s Christian Kjelling scored four consecutive goals for his club and the halftime result was 18:14.

For Portland coach Javier Cabanas the match was decided already after 30 minutes:

“We missed too many chances in the first half and Hamburg had no problems in going ahead with some goals. The HSV victory was not only well-deserved, but also never endangered in the second halftime.”

Especially Yoon, whom the Spanish defense could never stop, made a difference. Portland, that changed goalkeeper from Tomas Svensson to Walter Matosevic in the second half,lost their plot. Malmagro score ten times, but it was not enough against a very strong Hamburg team that were already leading by eight goals (27:19).

Portland improved for the last ten minutes when their defence has become more aggressive. But the 30:27 was the smallest difference and the last goal was scored by Torsten Jansen, 31:27 at the end.

“It’s a great fun to play in this ‘death group’,” said HSV coach Martin Schwalb. “We have to continue playing like this if we want to reach the semi-finals. It’s great to see so many world class players in Hamburg every match. Today we nearly did everything well, especially the way we played against the Portland defence.”