Clear Barcelona win against brave Danes

FC Barcelona lived up to their status as favourites and took a deciding step towards the quarter-finals through their 29:22 win against Aalborg Handball in the first leg of the two teams' Last 16 tie in a sold-out Gigantium in Aalborg Sunday afternoon.

However, the injury handicapped Danish champions managed to offer fine resistance for great parts of the match, and the home team was even in the lead several times in the first half.

Aalborg Handball (DEN) vs FC Barcelona (ESP) 22:29 (13:15)

Both teams were bothered by injury problems ahead of the match. Barcelona were still missing knee injured goalkeeper Arpad Sterbik, while there was doubt about shoulder injury to right wing Victor Tomas and foot injury to Shiarhei Rutenka.

Both were able to play, though, while things were worse for Aalborg.

Right wing Stig Bugge (foot) left back Marcus Mørk (shoulder) and line player Jacob Bagersted (foot) were all sidelined, while Johan Jacobsson´s groin problems only allowed the Swedish international to play for limited parts of the game.

Still, the Danish champions managed to offer Barcelona fine resistance for parts of the match, and in the first half in particular.

Barcelona got the far better start and got ahead 8:4, but from that point, Aalborg´s tactic with trying to reduce the pace in the game started to become successful.

Five goals in succession really got the 4,646 spectators in Gigantium going and brought Aalborg in the lead for the first time, at 9:8.

The home team had a few more one-goal leads, before Barcelona tightened the grip in the last minutes of the first half which the visitors won 15:13.

Effective finish

Barcelona continued to control the match after the break, but Aalborg still managed to offer resistance, even though the distance was between three and five goals most of the time.

In the last minutes, however, Barcelona tightened the grip a bit again and through an effective finish they managed to increase the lead to seven at the end. A result which virtually sends the Spanish team to the quarter-finals ahead of the second leg in the Palau Blaugrana next Saturday.

“It is tough to play with so few players against a team with so physically strong players, and a team who can go on sending on world class players as substitutes for those on the court,” Aalborg´s left back Mads Mensah Larsen told Danish TV after the match.

“I feel I did what I could, but I feel really tired now. However, it was a great experience to play this match, and we will have to take the return match as an experience too, added Larsen.