Szeged save two points at final horn

František Šulc scored 11 goals and Rajko Prodanović was kissing the ball after he netted the spectacular winner just one second before the final horn as Pick Szeged beat Kadetten Schaffhausen 30:29 in the thrilling Match of the Week on ehfTV.com on Saturday. Hungarian runners-up recorded the first two points of the new season of the VELUX EHF Champions League while Swiss champions fell down to the last place of the Group D standings and combined with the domestic competition suffered the fourth loss in a row.

"This match could have gone either way and we could have decided it for us as well. But we were not lucky enough tonight," the coach of Kadetten Petr Hrachovec said at the press conference.

Both opponents experienced disappointment in the first round - Szeged was defeated by Zagreb and Schaffhausen lost at home against Barcelona by ten goals. The motivation to get the first points to the rankings was high on both sides of the court, but so was the nervousness.

After an early lead 2:1 for Swiss club the scoring draught persisted for several minutes. Kadetten found a recipe for another goal earlier and in the 9th minute they extended the lead to three goals.

Szeged were struggling and even the time-out of László Szaklicki did not start the engine of the home team (3:6, minute 14). Only in the second part of the first half Pick found the rhythm and leveled the score (8:8), but guests were playing better and won the half time (14:12).

Pick equalized again after the break and eight minutes in the second half they took the lead (18:17). Picking up the level of play also improved the atmosphere in the crowd, but guests were far from showing the white flags and fought back.

The rest of the second half was a see-saw affair with both rivals trying to reach the first victory. The Slovakian sniper of Szeged scored his eleventh in the 59th minute, but Schaffhausen used their time-out very well to prepare an attack with successful tying shot of Aleksandar Stojanović at the end.

With one minute to go Szkalicki put the green card with "T" on the time-keepers table as well and although Šulc´s attempt ended in a block, Leszek Starczan´s two minutes penalty gave the home team a man advantage in the dying seconds of the match. Szeged stole the win in the way worth of MOTW as Attila Vadkerti´s pass from the left wing found the flying Prodanović who sent the ball behind Arūnas Vaškevičius´s back.

"The most important thing was to win the match by half or one goal, it did not matter... The team wants to win more and more, and maybe sometimes the pressure is too big for us. Maybe sometimes we need a little calm down to solve everything," Szabolcs Zubai told DigiSport Hungary after the match.

"I am happy for the boys who found the right decision in the critical moment and performed it really well. I guess we have won a correct, good match, what was a great promotion for this competition," coach László Skaliczki stated.