Flensburg take a thrilling revenge

SG win all-German ehfTV.com match of the week against Hamburg and are equal with their opponent and Medvedi now

SG Flensburg-Handewitt are back on track after winning the highly thrilling www.ehfTV.com Match of the Week in group A against their German opponents HSV Hamburg closely by 29:26 (14:12). After the 28:31 defeat in the first leg last Sunday, both teams are all squared in the direct encounter at 57:57.

After their first defeat in this season of the VELUX EHF Champions League Hamburg missed the chance for an early qualification for the Last 16. After six rounds Hamburg and Chekhovskie Medvedi are equal by 9 points – and dominate their group clearly, Flensburg is one point behind. The most important question in the remaining four rounds will be which team will finally top the table.

Flensburg coach Ljubomir Vranjes was highly happy with the victory: “Both teams played on a highest level, regarding that both teams are hit hard by injuries. I am satisfied with the way we fought until the final whistle. In total the first match in Hamburg was better but thanks to our spectators we managed to take those highly important points. So I am proud of my players and our fans.”

On the other hand HSV coach Martin Schwalb was angry about “the huge number of mistakes we had caused”. But in his general balance he also pointed out “that it is incredible how many key players on both sides were missing due to injuries. I am convinced that both German teams will progress to the Last 16.”

The re-match in Flensburg was a nail-biting full defence battle – decided seconds before the final whistle and exactly in the same second, when German Sebastian Vettel became Formula 1 champion for the third time. Match winner for Flensburg was top scorer Holger Glandorf, whose seven goals mostly were scored in the crucial stages of the match, like goal number seven for 27:24 90 seconds before the end. Aside, the tactical measure of a long-term man-to-man defence against Hamburg’s Domagoj Duvnjak was decisive. Duvnjak had been the crucial figure in the first match and even became HSV top scorer with seven goals again – but was controlled much better. HSV had to replace his Croatian country-fellow Blaženko Lacković due to a broken finger, occurred in a league match on Wednesday.

“Despite all our severe injuries we stand as one as a team. We showed heart and passion in a match, which was not that nice to watch as it was a 60 minutes pure fight,” said Flensburg playmaker Thomas Mogensen and added: “Our coach Ljubomir Vranjes injected us the will to win in the last but one team time-out.”

This time-out was a real wake-up call for Flensburg, as Hamburg just had turned around the match by five straight goals from 15:19 to 20:19. But from that moment on, the Flensburg batteries were loaded a little bit more than those of Hamburg.

The host had started better, led 8:5 - mostly thanks to their wing players Anders Eggert and Lasse Svan Hansen.  But when HSV changed their goalkeeper to former Flensburg player Dan Beutler they found their confidence as Beutler backed his team by a huge number of saves. Hans Lindberg equalized at 11:11 for the first time, and the defence of his team had clearly improved compared to the starting period.

Though Flensburg led by 14:12 nothing was decided. Hamburg again leveled the match at 15:15, before first conceding four straight goals and then striking five consecutive times. But after this mentioned time-out Flensburg were on top, but could not outclass their opponent clearly. Even a Glandorf double strike for 26:23 did not bring the decision.  But when goalkeeper Mattias Andersson brilliantly saved a counter attack of Stefan Schröder at the score of 28:26 and Eggert scored his sixth and final goal the SG fans started their big party.