Exciting encounters promised in Group Phase draw

18 teams from eleven nations have been handed direct qualification for the Group Phase of the 2013/14 VELUX EHF Champions League season on account of the EHF seeding list.

Top ranked nations Germany and Spain have three spots each, Denmark, France and Slovenia have two clubs each among those 18 teams, while Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Russia, FYR Macedonia and Switzerland are represented by one team each in the Group Phase.
 
The Gloriette in Vienna’s famous Schönbrunn castle will be the venue for the composition of those four groups. On Friday, 28 June at 20:15 hrs. local time the draw will take place, live-streamed and followed by interviews with the club representatives on ehfTV.com.

Additionally a live ticker is available on eurohandball.com and draw update on Twitter @ehfcl.

EHF regulations state that teams from the same nation cannot be drawn in the same group – with one exception: a team arriving from the Wild Card Tournament (Montpellier, Metalurg, Szeged and Plock) or the Wild Card KO matches between defending champions Hamburg and Berlin.

Besides defending champions HSV Hamburg and 2003 champions MAHB Montpellier (both still have the chance to make it among those 24 teams of the Group Phase) each of the VELUX EHF Champions League winners since 2004 are among those 18 teams directly qualified: THW Kiel (winner 2007, 2010, 2012), FC Barcelona Intersport (winner 2005, 2011), Atletico Madrid (winner 2006, 2008, 2009 under their former name Ciudad Real) and RK Pivovarna Lasko Celje (winner 2004).

Paris is calling

Despite the familiarity among many of the teams involved, those who assumed that only the traditionally strong teams are among those 18 teams to be drawn in the four groups on Friday are completely wrong.

Some new faces will bring a fresh breath of life to the VELUX EHF Champions League. A special focus is on PSG Handball. The team from Paris became French champion for the first time – and their shopping spree which started in 2012 when Qatari investors took over the club is not finished.

After signing players like former World Handball Player of the Year Mikkel Hansen (Denmark), Marko Kopljar (Croatia), World, European and Olympic champions Luc Abalo and Didier Dinart (both France) in the previous season, now the current World Handball Player of the Year Daniel Narcisse (France, from THW Kiel), Croatian Olympic and World Champion Igor Vori (arriving from defending VELUX EHF Champions League winner HSV Hamburg) and Hungarian playmaker Gabor Czaszar (Veszprem) have joined the club seeded in Pot 2 on Friday.

Danish dynamite and Macedonians with a Russian twist

Paris is not the only new team hoping to make a major impact on the VELUX EHF Champions League.

Aalborg Handball, founded in 2011, made it to the Group Phase as Danish champions for the first time. And the club of former THW Kiel player Nicolaj Jakobsen is seeded in Pot 1, avoiding clubs like THW Kiel, FC Barcelona or MKB Veszprem in the Group Phase.

Pot 3 includes new Macedonian champions Vardar Skopje, with four former players of Russian powerhouse Chekhovskie Medvedi (Mikhail Chipurin, Daniil Shishkarev, Alexey Rastvortsev and Timur Dibirov).

Fresh blood from France, Switzerland and Spain

Three more teams enter the best club competition in handball for the first time: Swiss champions Wacker Thun (former EHF Challenge Cup winner), Spanish team Naturhouse La Rioja (third ranked in the Asobal league) and Dunkerque HB Grand Littoral (second ranked in France).

Major transfers among the traditional teams

Many of the teams who are regular faces in the competition have been undergoing a squad transformation.

After losing the thrilling final against Hamburg in extra-time, FC Barcelona Intersport reinforced their squad with top guns and former Champions League top scorers Nikola Karabatic (Aix-en-Provence/Montpellier) and Kiril Lazarov (Madrid).

Kiel lost four experienced players (Thierry Omeyer/Montpellier, Daniel Narcisse/Paris, Momir Ilic/Veszprem and Marcus Ahlm/end of career), but signed rising stars Wael Jallouz, Rasmus Lauge and Johan Sjöstrand.

Veszprem lost Csazsar to Paris, but signed Ilic and Celje lost their top shooter Borut Mačkovšek to German side Hannover-Burgdorf.

Playing system remains the same

The Group Phase will – as since the 2009/10 season - be played in ten rounds from 18 September 2013 to 23 February 2014 (seven rounds in 2013, three after the EHF EURO 2014 break).

The four best teams of each group qualify for the Last 16 (19-30 March 2014), when the group winners will face the fourth ranked teams and the runners-up compete with the third ranked teams for the eight spots of the quarter-finals (16-27 April 2014).

Those quarter-final winners have made it to the pinnacle of the season, the VELUX EHF FINAL4 in Cologne (31 May/1 June 2014).

Seeding of teams for the VELUX EHF Champions League 2013/14 Group Phase Draw:

POT 1: THW Kiel (GER), FC Barcelona (ESP), Aalborg Hanbdall (DEN), MKB Veszprém KC (HUN)
POT 2: KS Vive Targi Kielce (POL), HC Croatia Osiguranje Zagreb (CRO), PSG Handball (FRA), RK Gorenje Velenje (SLO)
POT 3: SG Flensburg-Handewitt (GER), BM Atlético Madrid (ESP), St. Petersburg HC (RUS), HC Vardar Skopje – PRO (MKD)
POT 4: KIF Kolding København (DEN), Wacker Thun (SUI), Rhein-Neckar Löwen (GER), Naturhouse La Rioja (ESP)
POT 5: Dunkerque HB Grand Littoral (FRA), Celje Pivovarna Laško (SLO), 2 qualifiers
POT 6: 2 qualifiers, Wild card Tournament, Wild card KO Match