Hamburg win again in Montpellier

Hans Lindberg scored ten goals as HSV Hamburg beat French champions 33:29 on their own court in Montpellier and are sharing the top spot in the Group A of the VELUX EHF Champions League with bundesliga rivals from Flensburg. Montpellier are last with one point before playing their next match against Chekhov in Russia.

Both teams were missing key players in the Match of the week. On the French side five players were absent (the Karabatic brothers, Issam Tej, Dragan Gajić, Primož Prošt) while Hamburg was short of Krzysztof Lijewski due to an ankle injury.

The young French talent Mathieu Grébille showed his team-mates they could count on him, though, scoring the first two goals of the game. But Hamburg's offense proved to be really efficient, and with four goals in the first ten minutes Hans Lindberg gave his team the first advantage (7:4). Feeling that his team might start loosing ground, Montpellier's coach Patrice Canayer used the first time-out.

Despite his team created really good opportunities, the gap was growing mainly thanks to the goalkeeper of German side Dan Beutler and his several saves. After two consecutive goals from Domagoj Duvjnak guests were seven goals in front (12:5 after 16 minutes).

The arrival of Remi Desbonnet, the young goalkeeper more used to games with Montpellier's second team, combined with the goals of Michaël Guigou and Cristian Malmagro allowed the French outfit to narrow the deficit to two goals five minutes before the break (14:12). And only thanks to two saves of Enid Tahirović in the last ten seconds of the first half, Hamburg could still take two goals advantage (16:14) to the dressing rooms.

Right from the start of the second half, things got worse for Montpellier. Guigou and Petar Metličić received two minutes penalties and Fredrik Petersen scored two consecutives goals, pulling his team ahead (18:14). Although youngster Desbonnet showed no respect to his veteran counter-part Beutler and scored after a brave trip deep to the offensive zone and a spectacular lob (watch on ehfTV), his team-mates could not find the key to the HSV defence, being too passive, and allowing Lindberg to carry on with his fast-break show, scoring ten goals in total.

Only William Accambray and Mathieu Grébille (best Montpellier scorer with 10 goals) played at their usual level, while Malmagro and Metličić scored on too few occasions to be really dangerous. In the last ten minutes Hamburg started to lose balls and miss shots, waking up the crowd, but it could not stop their march to the victory 33:29, repeating their success from the opening match of the arena in Perols in 2010.

"We knew it would be tough against Hamburg. We had a bad first-half, we conceded 16 goals, and then the gap was to big for us to come back. We have to to fix this because it happens the same way at every Champions League match. I am satisfied with my own performance, but I would be definitely happier if the team won the games at the end,“ Grébille said after the match.