La Rioja edge Zagreb as Kiel rout Metalurg

La Rioja and Kiel won their fourth-round matches in Group A in contrasting fashion, as the Spanish side came from behind to edge out Zagreb while Kiel steamrolled to a convincing victory against Metalurg.

Both sides stayed in contention to progress into the Last 16, with Zagreb also in a good position despite spilling a three-goal halftime lead against their rivals. Paris Saint-Germain Handball visit Meshkov Brest in the group’s final game of the weekend on Sunday.

GROUP A
Naturhouse La Rioja (ESP) vs HC PPD Zagreb (CRO) 22:21 (9:12)

La Rioja hung on to their hopes of reaching the knockout stages of Europe’s premier club competition with a hard-fought win over Croatian champions Zagreb by the narrowest of margins.

Both teams now have four points from four games and a fair chance of advancing into the Last 16, but it was the Spanish outfit who were under tremendous pressure to deliver on home court.

Albert Rocas Comas stood out for La Rioja with a game-high seven goals while three of his team-mates added three each. Domagoj Pavlovic led Zagreb with five goals, with Ilija Brozovic adding four.

HC Metalurg (MKD) vs THW Kiel (GER) 27:42 (15:22)

Rare are games where two teams produce such an avalanche of goals, but the one-sided encounter in Skopje was one-way traffic from start to finish as the gulf in class between the two sides was everywhere to be seen.

Having lost their opening game at Zagreb, triple European club champions have now notched up three wins in a row and stayed firmly on course to progress from a finely balanced group.

With four straight defeats, Metalurg in contrast have a mountain to climb if they are to avoid an early exit and given their performances that like looks a tall order.

The home side were only on par early on, when at one point they were tied at 2:2, but having fallen behind they never looked like coming away with something from this game in front of their home fans.

Kiel romped away to a 15:8 lead and when their advantage soared to double figures (25:15) early in the second half there was no way back for the Macedonian title holders.