Easy job in Belgrade

Playing in the Champions League means currently much more fun and success for HSV Hamburg than their Bundesliga matches. While at home Hamburg are only on 11th place of the table with 7 points won and 7 lost, the team of Martin Schwalb won their third match in the “king’s class” and the leader of Group D are heading for the Main Round.

Only four days after a very important away victory in Copenhagen, HSV took the hurdle at Red Star Belgrade very easily and won a one-sided match by 38:22 (17:12).

“We played with concentration for 60 minutes and this was important as we had to change very often. Some players needed a rest due to injuries,” Martin Schwalb said.

His team remain spotless after three matches. The best scorer in Belgrade was Hans Lindbergh with nine goals.

“We could not play an equal game against Hamburg, but we learned a lot,” Belgrade’s coach Igor Butulija said.

Hamburg started on high speed and took a 3:0 lead and later 15:9 (in the 24th minute). At this point Schwalb started to change his key players as it was obvious that Belgrade were not strong enough to keep up with the pace of the last season’s CL semi-finalist.

12 minutes after the break HSV’s lead was ten goals for the first time (25:15) – all HSV players hit the net, even defence specialist Dimitri Torgovanov who scored the last goal.

The top scorer of Belgrade was Perovic with 5 goals.