St. Petersburg become first team in group phase

Former VELUX EHF Champions League participants St. Petersburg became the first team to qualify for the group phase of the Men's EHF Cup this season.

On Friday evening, the Russian team won the second leg of the Men's EHF Cup Qualification Round 3 against Grundfos Tatabanya 32:24 at home in the Arena St. Petersburg.

Having lost only 23:22 in the first leg away on Sunday, this win was more than enough for St. Petersburg to proceed to the group phase.

Grundfos Tatabanya's best European achievement so far has been reaching the Last 16 in the EHF Cup in the 2010/11 season, and this is still the best performance in the Hungarian team's European history after they were sent out Friday evening

A one goal lead from the first leg is seldom enough in a European Cup tie, and Tatabanya became just another team who had to realise this.
The 23:22 win the Hungarian team managed to land at home proved to be far from enough when they visited St. Petersburg for the return match on Friday.

The second leg was more or less decided already at half-time, when the 1,000 spectators could see the home team take a 19:10 lead with them to the locker room.

After the impressive performance in the first 30 minutes, St. Petersburg could live with losing the second half by a single goal.

Tatabanya had the two most scoring players of the match, as Serbian right back Novak Boskovic and centre back Adam Juhasz scored seven goals each. St. Petersburg had their top scorers in right back Taras Dryapochko and left back Ruslan Junisbekov from Kasakhstan with six goals apiece.