High-flying Buducnost set to make the final step

Having beaten Viborg 28:22 in the first leg of their EHF Champions League quarter-final double-header, the competition’s 2012 winners and last year’s runners-up Buducnost are a whisker away from securing a FINAL4 berth.

The Montenegrin title holders take on the Danish side in front of their frenetic fans in the Moraca Arena on Sunday and although they will miss injured left wing Biljana Pavicevic, who is out of the return leg with a sprained ankle, Buducnost should have little trouble in sealing their ticket for the season-ending showdown in Budapest.

Women's EHF Champions League quarter-final return leg:
Buducnost (MNE) vs Viborg HK A/S (DEN)
Podgorica, Sunday 12 April at 17.00 hrs local time, live on ehfTV

With so much talent and experience in their ranks, it is hardly surprising that Buducnost are the prime candidates to win Europe’s premier club competition although they will take nothing for granted in the return leg of their quarter-final tie against Viborg.

A resounding 28:22 win in the reverse fixture in Denmark, when the lethal trio of Katarina Bulatovic, Cristina Neagu and Dragana Cvijic combined for 19 goals in a lopsided contest, has put the Montenegrin side on the verge of reaching the FINAL4.

Many pundits might expect Buducnost to just go through the motions on Sunday but their speedy winger Radmila Petrovic emphasised that her team must forget about any sort of complacency against opposition with nothing to lose in the cauldron of Podgorica’s Moraca Hall.

“Viborg will be much more focused in Podgorica because they know what it’s like to play against us after the first leg and they will certainly keep their errors down to a minimum,” Petrovic told Montenegrin media.

“But we won’t let them dictate the pace and I am sure our fans will once again get behind us. We have to rectify some of the glitches from the first leg and keep up a high level in order to be in the right shape for even tougher opponents coming our way.”

Viborg will hope that their prolific Serbian left back Sanja Damnjanovic shows better form than in the first leg, when she was stifled out by an ironclad Buducnost defence and mustered a modest one goal.

The brunt of Viborg’s scoring workload was managed by left back Rikke Skov (8 goals) and Swedish centre back Isabelle Gullden (4), meaning that the rest of the roster must step up if the Danish outfit are to stand any chance of springing an upset.

“We must have the same attitude we showed in the first game,” Viborg goalkeeper Rikke Poulsen told the club’s official website (www.vhk.dk).

“It’s a noisy place so we must stand firm together, maintain eye contact and display our trademark fighting spirit,” she said.

“Of course it will be difficult because we have a six-goal deficit to overhaul and they will play tough defence but it will be fantastic if we can turn the tables and pull of a huge surprise.”