Huge win sends Halmstad to Group Phase

For the first time in history HK Halmstad DROTT made it to the VELUX EHF Champions League Group Phase as the Swedish champions easily erased four goal deficit from the first leg and beat Handball Esch from Luxembourg 37:14.

DROTT will take part in the Group D together with Aalborg Håndbold, SG Flensburg Handewitt, RK Gorenje Velenje, Naturhouse La Rioja and the defending champions HSV Hamburg.

In the first round the Swedish team will travel to Velenje. The Champions League dream of the last season's Challenge Cup finalists from Esch has been ruined in Scandinavia and they will continue their European campaign in the EHF Cup as they will face another Swedish team IFK Kristianstad in Round 2. 

Qualification 1, 2nd leg:

HK DROTT Halmstad vs Handball Esch 37:14 (19:8)

First leg: 26:30

It was a given fact that a new Champions League participant was to be found in the qualification tie between Handball Esch and HK DROTT Halmstad. If Esch succeeded, the surprise package from last season would be the first team ever from Luxembourg to get that far, and although DROTT have been Swedish champions 11 times during history, they had never made it to the Group Phase before and at three previous attempts in the qualification they failed.

After their 30:26 home win in the first leg, the champions of Luxembourg went to southern Sweden with a certain optimism.

“If Halmstad give us the chance, we will take it,” Esch´s head coach Werner Klöckner told ehfCL.com before the second leg, and at the beginning it looked, as if his team was going to get that chance, as they took the lead at 4:2. They were not going to stay in Paradise for long, though.

“We will have to be much better in our defence, than we were in the first match,” Halmstad coach Ulf Sivertsson said before the return match, and apart from the first minutes, his players seemed to have listened. After a quarter of an hour, the visitors´s two goal lead had been changed into a 9:5 lead for the home team, and at half time the Halmstad lead was already as big as 19:8.

Unstoppable DROTT

The difference became even more outspoken in the second half, where Robert Bladh in the Halmstad goal took the self confidence completely out of the Esch players, making more than 20 saves. Even though the hosts gave playing time to all their substitutes, they continued to be unstoppable and to extend their lead. Via 27:9 and 31:11, then, DROTT and the 1185 spectators could celebrate a 23 goal win at the end.

“After having played an extremely poor game in the first match, we played a really fine game this time. We had really learned a lot from the first match, and we definitely benefitted from that today. Now we are really looking forward to the group phase which will be a great experience to all our players,” DROTT Halmstad´s head coach Ulf Sivertsson told ehfCL.com after the match.

Magnus Persson was DROTT´s most scoring player with seven goals, while Max Kohl and Eric Schmidt scored three each for Esch.

Photo: Lisa Fallhagen, HK Drott Halmstad