Besiktas and Constanta ready for Group 3 final

Besiktas MOGAZ HT and HCM Constanta qualified for the final battle for the last place in Group B of the VELUX EHF Champions League.

Both teams booked clear wins in their respective semi-finals in Qualification Tournament 3 in Hasselt, Belgium on Saturday.

However, while Besiktas were in the lead constantly in their 29:22 win against Haslum Handballklubb, Constanta were in trouble a great part of the way against hosts Hubo Initia Hasselt before making the decisive distance at the end and win 29:20.

On Sunday at 14.45 CET Haslum and Initia Hasselt are meeting in the match for the 3/4 place, and at 17.00, Besiktas and Constanta enter the Sporthal Alverberg for the deciding match for the group phase ticket.

Qualifications tournament 3, semi-finals:

Haslum Handballklubb (NOR) vs Besikta MOGAZ HT (TUR) 22:29 (11:17)

In the qualifiers for the group phase of the 2012/13 EHF Cup Besiktas won by one goal on aggregate against Haslum. And once against the Turkish champions proved to have the upper hand against their Norwegian adversaries, as the two teams met in the first semi-final of Qualification Group 3 for the VELUX EHF Champions League group phase.

Besiktas were dominating more or less from the start and leading throughout all 60 minutes, most of the time even clearly. Around 150 Turkish fans supported their heroes enthusiastically among the 550 spectators, and after a fairly equal start, Skarpsno had to take his first time-out after 13 minutes, seeing his team being down 9:6.

However, things were only going to change from bad to worse for Haslum, as Besitkas did non only manage to hold on to their three goal lead for the next minutes, but to double it to six at half time.

From the start of the second half, the Turkish champions removed the last bit of doubt as to which team was going to make it to the final.

Their 17:11 lead from half-time was changed into a nine goal lead at 22:13 within just ten minutes, and not even three goals in succession from Haslum could shake Besiktas who soon managed to increase the distance again and ended by winning with seven goals.

“This game was boys against men,” was the immediate comment from Haslum coach Tom-Eirik Skarpsno after the defeat. “My team is young and lacks the experience in a game like this. We still have to practice a lot,” added Skarpsno.

Quite naturally, his colleague by Besiktas was a happier man. “I am extremely happy with the defence my boys showed today. Especially our goalkeeper Yunus Özmusul. He created the opportunities for fast and easy scorings,” head coach Mufit Arin said.

HCM Constanta (ROU) vs Hubo Initia Hasselt (BEL) 29:20 (13:13)

For a long time the Belgian hosts from Initia Hasselt were able to challenge Constanta, but at the end the Romanian champions who reached the semi-finals of the EHF Cup last season, made it all clear and booked the ticket for the group final against Besiktas on Sunday.

The first half was equal with changing leads, and even with Initia in front by two goals a couple of times. The half time result was also completely even, 13:13. Initia even got the better start to the last 30 minutes and got two goals up again, at 16:14 six minutes after the break.

However, a time-out called by Constanta coach Zvonko Sundovski two minutes later, when the score was still 16:14, seemed to don wonders for his team. Constanta won the next 17 minutes no less than 12:2 which changed the 14:16 deficit into a 26:18 lead.

With five minutes left, this was obviously the decision, and in the last minutes, Constanta managed to increase their lead by a further goal to nine at the end. Constanta enter the Sporthal Alverberg for the deciding match for the group phase ticket.

Constanta's Spanish right back Javie Humet Gaminde became most scoring player in the match with seven goals, while Bram Dewit and Bart Köhlen scored five each for Hasselt.