Preview of the Women´s Challenge Cup Semi-finals, second leg

Üsküdar BSK and Fantasyland Samobor are in driving seats on the way to the Women´s Challenge Cup Final when they enter the second leg matches on the courts of their opponents on Saturday. The Turkish club will try to defend four-goal lead in Most, Czech republic and Samobor travel to Sweden´s Höör with an eight-goal cushion.

The draw of the home right in each of two final legs will be determined by a draw on Tuesday 16 April at 11:00 hrs at the EHF Office in Vienna.

H 65 Höör (SWE) vs Fantasyland Samobor (CRO)
Saturday 13 April 16:00 hrs local time
First leg: 17:25

Swedish team have a steep hill to climb if they want to take part in the final after having lost by eight goals in the first match.

“It was not a problem to create scoring positions throughout the match, but we struggled to execute our chances. I would not say my players could not cope with the pressure, but we energetically we were never really there,” coach of Höör Niklas Harris said for skanska.se website hoping for a much better performance on the home court.

HK Baník Most (CZE) vs Üsküdar BSK (TUR)
Saturday 13 April 19:00 hrs local time
First leg: 27:31

Czech side from Most have only half of Höör´s deficit to overcome in the second leg against Turkey´s Üsküdar and they hope they have learned their lesson about the strongest weapon of their opponents.

“We played against fantastic Özel, a world-class shooter, who we had not known before. She scored nine goals against us and added ten more assists. The important question now is, if their Serbian star will manage to recover from injury in time for the second leg,” Baník Most coach Dušan Poloz said for the Czech website idnes.cz referring to Biljana Filipović, one of the key players of Serbian surprising semi-final run at the last EHF EURO.

“Four goals do not mean anything in handball. We are going to play host to Turkish team this time and in front of our great fans we are much stronger. I hope we can fulfil our dream of reaching the final,“ Petra Beňušková said for the official club website. Five years ago she led ŠKP Bratislava to the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup as the best scorer of the Slovakian team.

Photo: Dora Trošelj