Easy work for the “Lions”

Qualifying for the Champions League for the first time was no great task for the Rhein Neckar Löwen.

RNL have beaten the Luxembourg champions, HB Dudelange, twice (41:16 and 46:15) within 21 hours. The Mannheim-based club will play in the next stage against Zagreb, Plock and Szeged, while Dudelange can continue in the EHF Cup against Milli Payango (Turkey).

In total the difference of 56 goals shows a big difference between the world class club from Germany and the semi-professional players from Luxembourg.

“We knew that we were the great favourites, but we played focused both matches to avoid surprises. Now we did our job and we will enjoy playing against three top clubs,” left winger Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson said.

Already after the first match in Luxembourg on Friday evening it was obvious that Dudelange was no big hurdle for the “Lions” playing on high speed.

They took it seriously in Trier where the second leg was played on Saturday afternoon. In total the best scorer was the young Uwe Gensheimer with 15 goals altogether.

“Löwen” coach Youri Chevtsov was able to give all his players a lot of playing time – an important thing, says German international Andrej Klimovets:

“Due to the Olympics, where nine of our players took part, we couldn’t prepare in the best way. These two matches were very good to get together and practice. Now we reached our objective and I hope that we can get further than only playing in the first group phase.”

For the “Lions”, runner-up in last season’s EHF Cup, the CL participation is the biggest international success ever. And Klimovets believes that the “Lions” can play an important role in their group:

“Zagreb and we are the favourites to advance to the Main Round.”