Draw at the River of Dreams

After the 2015 draw of the VELUX EHF FINAL4 took place in Palais Flora, one of the most romantic locations in Cologne, the event, which will decide the semi-final pairings of this year’s final tournament, will visit another picturesque place of the hosting German city on Tuesday, 3 May 2016.
Just two days after the last FINAL4 participant will clinch its ticket the draw will be hosted right on the banks of the Rhine river in The View location.

As its name suggests the place offers splendid views to the famous Hohenzollern bridge or the Cologne Cathedral and club representatives present at the event at “river of dreams” will without doubt be dreaming of what is possible on 28/29 May.

Open draw

All four teams will be drawn from the same pot. The VELUX EHF FINAL4 draw will be completely open, what means that two teams from the same country can face each other in the semi-final (if both Flensburg and Kiel qualify).

The same applies for teams who already played each other in the group phase.

The playing times of the VELUX EHF FINAL4 have been set already and on both days the matches will start at 15:15 and 18:00 hrs local time.

New concept and live coverage

The whole event starting at 12:00 hrs will be streamed live and free on ehfTV.com. The EHF and EHF Marketing have decided to offer to all viewers.a new concept and instead of a standard press conference there will be a TV-studio-like programme.

The new format will not only include interviews with EHF and EHF Marketing managers but also a skype discussion with players from each participating team before and after the draw.

Anett Sattler, one of the three hosts of the VELUX EHF FINAL4 in the LANXESS arena come the end of May, will host the players’ chats.

In addition the fans will be also able to follow the live ticker on the official website www.eurohandball.com or live Tweeting on the official @ehfcl account.

No team through yet

No team has been confirmed yet for the VELUX EHF FINAL4, but some teams are close to their tickets to Cologne after the first leg. Paris Saint-Germain packed an eight-goal cushion (28:20) from their first leg games at HC PPD Zagreb and they are close to their maiden voyage to Cologne.

MVM Veszprem also recorded an important away win on the hot court of HC Vardar (29:26), while THW Kiel beat the defending champions FC Barcelona Lassa 29:24. The remaining fixture of Vive Tauron Kielce and SG Flensburg-Handewitt remain wide open after a 28:28 draw in the first leg.

Photo: courtesy of Manuel Thome