Kiel open with victory

The most beautiful goal of the day was scored by the guest team coming from FYR Macedonia. It happened 12 seconds before the halftime that Kiel goalkeeper Thierry Omeyer left the court. The left handed Kim Andersson took a green shirt to level the numerical advantage. “We could have done anything except for passing the goal to the goalkeeper by chance,” coach Alfred Gislason rememberd later.

But it happened like that and the guest goalkeeper Borko Ristovski took the ball and scored from the other end of the court into the empty net. 10 000 amazed fans have seen in the Sparkassen Arena as Metalurg Skopje closed the gap to 15:18 at halftime.

The 37:29 victory of the Champions League runner-up was never in danger, however. The fast counter attacks of Kiel were already functioning well in the early stage of the game and a Vid Kavticnik loop made it 6:2 already in the 9th minute. This was the first big lead for the hosts.

The Macedonian champions were able to resist the pressure and especially the line player Vanco Dimovski made an impact.

“My team fought very well,” explained Zvonko Shundovski. “We allowed too many technical mistakes against such a great team.”

The Kiel players returned from the halftime break focused. They quickly made it 24:16 (37th min) and settled the game. At 32:22 (49th min) the difference was 10 goals fort he first time.

In the closing minutes of the game, Skopje made the defeat more acceptable and they reached their best ever result on an away court in the Champions League.

“We missed a couple of chances and we could not win by more goals,” said Alfred Gislason who was only partially satisfied with the performance of his team.

For the record: Borko Ristovski tried another shot four minutes from the end. The Macedonian national goalkeeper has seen that Thierry Omeyer was far from the goal line on the other side and shot. The French was alert this time and saved.