Ciudad beat Löwen

Ciudad Real completed the preparations for the upcoming season with a tour across Germany.

The Champions League title holders played four matches last week. After beating second league team Dessau 47:28 (22:14), the former Champions League winner SC Magdeburg 26:24 (14:7) and the first division Füchse Berlin 31:24 (13:11), the team of coach Talant Dujshebaev showed a strong performance against Rhein Neckar Löwen.

Due to an extraordinary defence (including outstanding goalkeepers Sterbik and Hombrados) Ciudad Real won at the home of the last season’s semi-finalist by 27:22 (12:12). The renewed team from Spain that lost six important players such as Rutenka and Stefansson are determined to be number one in Europe again.

“We want to win all titles and I believe in my team,” Dujshebaev said after the victory in Karlsruhe against the Löwen. Top scorer of Ciudad Real was Jerome Fernandez. Uwe Gensheimer scored six goals for the Germans.

Despite the defeat Löwen captain Gudjon Valur Sigurdssson is optimistic:

“We played much better than one week before at the tournament in Strasbourg.”

Coach Ola Lindgren added:

“If we solve our problems in attack, as we missed too many chances today, we will become a team with a lot of opportunities.”

For all the "Löwen", Ciudad are still among the favourites for winning the Champions League – and the title holder created a real defense wall. The new Russian player Egor Evdokimov is one of the “posts” of this wall next to Didier Dinart.

In attack, the new playmaker Juan Canellas showed a lot of inspiration as Chema Rodriguez was missing due to a back injury. With 17 saves in total Árpád Sterbik and Jose Hombrados showed their class in the goal again.

“Our team has changed, but we still have high class players”, Ciudad manager Luis Miguel Lopez said. And coach Dujshebaev doesn’t look at the past, only into the future: “I don’t care which players left, I only care for the team I have now. And we’re very ambitious.”