Leipzig and Ferencváros battle for the group stage

While FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria and HC Leipzig can still dream about a ticket in the Women's EHF Champions League Group Matches, both BNTU BelAZ Minsk Region and Sercodak Dalfsen are out from the race and will continue their European campaigns in the Cup Winners' Cup. As expected Ferencváros and tournament hosts HC Leipzig thumped their respective opponents in Saturday's semi-finals of the Qualification Tournament 1 in Leipzig, Germany and will face each other in the decisive match on Sunday.

Qualification Tournament 1 (Leipzig, Germany)

Semi-finals:
FTC-Rail Cargo Hungária vs Sercodak Dalfsen 33:25 (20:14)

Ferencváros got off to a flying start and immediately took charge of the game so heavily that Dutch champions Sercodak Dalfsen had to take two time-outs in the first ten minutes, when the Hungarian team built up a massive 11-3 lead.

Fiesty Dalfsen did not give up, opened their wall to steal balls and thanks to goals by Schoenaker the Dutch climbed back to 5-6 goals. However, Dalfsen could not scare Ferencváros as much as the minor injury of Zsuzsanna Tomori as the former top scorer of the Champions League limped off.

Ferencváros were convincing at times but due to the occasionaly lucklustre defending Dalfsen managed to stay in the game until Fradi finally found fifth gear and put an end to the game with an 8-1 run.

HC Leipzig vs BNTU BelAZ Minsk 22-18 (15-5)

The second semi-final offered even less thrills as the first one, tournament hosts Leipzig showed Minsk that the gap between the two teams grew even larger than it had been last year when German runners-up beat the Belarusian side by five goals.

BNTU never threatened to make the second semi-final a tense game, the German team comfortably got ahead and due to their excellent defending and the unbeatable Katja Schülke kept extending their lead.

The Belarusian champions managed to get a little closer when Leipzig players thought they had already won the game but after a short period the German outfit re-took charge of the game and despite they lost the second half they cruised to a comfortable victory during which they could even spare some energy for Sunday’s final.

Photo: Sebastian Brauner