Everything open after impressive Holstebro comeback

Everything is open in the Cup Winners’ Cup final after Team Tvis Holstebro managed to catch up with a six goal deficit to defeat Handball Club Lada 31:27 in the first leg in Denmark Sunday afternoon

Women’s Cup Winners’ Cup Final Leg 1

Team Tvis Holstebro (DEN) vs Handball Club Lada (RUS) 31:27 (10:16)

Team Tvis Holstebro have a good chance to win the last edition of the Cup Winners’ Cup before the tournament merges with the EHF Cup.

Through an impressive second half, Holstebro managed to turn a six-goal lead for Lada at half-time into a four goal win, which puts the Danish team in a good position ahead of the return match in Russian on Saturday.

Nothing indicated a Danish win in the first 30 minutes, though.

Holstebro had huge problems in finding openings in the strong Russian 6-0 defence with offensive backs.

Silje Solberg in the Holstebro goal did her best to keep her team in the game, but even a fine performance from the Norwegian international was not enough to prevent the visitors from taking a lead from the start.

Lada went up 5:2, 7:3, 12:7 and 15:9 before also taking a six-goal lead with them to the break.

Holstebro came out much stronger for the second half, though.

The pace in defence as well as attack was increased considerably, and at the same time, the players in the home team had the courage to run the counter attacks.

This paid off.

Holstebro scored the first four goals in the second half, and their comeback continued.

With 13 minutes and 50 seconds left, Cup Winners’ Cup top scorer Nathalie Hagman equalised to make it 23:23, and less than a minute later, Camilla Herrem gave the home team their first lead in the match, at 24:23.

Holstebro even went five goals up at 31:26, before Lada managed to score the last goal of the match.

“We came out with much more energy and spirit in the second half than before the break.

“In the first half, we tended to be too late in our actions in defence. We managed to improve that in the second half,” Holstebro left back Jette Hansen explained.