No easy opponents from now on, Gislason warns

The defending champions have done all they could to remain in the race for the top position in Group B of the VELUX EHF Champions League. They won in Romania over Constanta, took their eighth victory in match ten and remained unbeaten since middle of November, including a brilliant strike against current ranking leader MKB Veszprém (32:21) in Round 9.

Now the German outfit, who are always aiming for the VELUX EHF FINAL4 in Cologne, have to wait and see, what happens in Veszprém on Saturday, when the Hungarians face Atlético Madrid.

If the hosts lose, Kiel are number one, in any other case, they finish second in their group.

“I have no doubt that Veszprém will win their encounter against Madrid,” THW coach Alfred Gislason said after the 28:25 victory on Wednesday.

“So we will only finish second in this group. We have fulfilled our final tasks against Veszprém and Constanta, as it was our clear goal to win all our matches in the Champions League after the winter break.”

The “neck breaker” for the defending champions was the sensational defeat at Celje in November, right in the next round after they had lost at Veszprém by only one goal. “We definitely needed to win this key match at Celje, but we deserved to lose there. Celje was better and we did not play as we can,” team captain Marcus Ahlm said. “We lost the chance to win this group in Celje,” he added.

The Swedish line player, who will return to his home country after this season, is currently out with an eye injury occurred in the VELUX EHF Champions league match at Sävehof two weeks ago. Intermediately he could not see by this eye, but now it is getting better.

Next weekend he wants to be back in the training session, currently there is no doubt that he will be able to participate in the Last 16 matches in March.

In general, Ahlm is satisfied with the way the partly newly built THW team played on international ground by now. “We are happy except with this Celje match. We have beaten last season’s FINAL4 finallist Atlético Madrid twice, we have beaten Veszprém on home ground in a clear manner. And every team can lose at Veszprém,” he said.

Coach Alfred Gislason shares the opinion of his captain. “The defeat in Celje was too much to finally finish first. But we did not deserve to win in Slovenia, as our opponent were better than us. The rest was ok,” he admitted.

Now THW Kiel are already excited for the last 16 draw, which will take place in Vienna on Tuesday, 26 February from 12:30 hrs local time and will be streamed live by www.ehfTV.com.

If the defending champions – as they expect by themselves – finish second, they will face a team from Pot 3 except Madrid, which they already met in the Group Phase. The currently only confirmed teams are Dinamo Minsk and Medvedi Chekhov, in the Group A the decision will be taken between Skopje and Velenje.

So Gislason do not mind what team they will face in the first knock-out stage. “I do not like to speculate, the draw will show, which team it will be. And from the Last 16 on you cannot get an easy opponent anymore in this competition,” THW Kiel coach warned.

THW Kiel are eagerly willing to break the VELUX EHF FINAL4 curse in this season – as in all previous tournaments the defending champions did not manage to qualify for the next edition. 2010 winner Kiel were eliminated by later-on trophy holder FC Barcelona Intersport in 2011, and Barca were eliminated by AG København in 2012.