Göppingen within touching distance of another quarter-final

On home ground in the EWS Arena, Frisch Auf Göppingen took another huge step towards the quarter-finals of the Men’s EHF Cup as the back-to-back tournament champions defeated Finnish side Cocks clearly for the second time within five days, after their 31:20 win last Saturday.

• Despite their loss, Cocks were leading almost throughout the entire first half
• Göppingen are top of the group with eight points
• Cocks are last in the group and have no chance of progressing

Group C

Frisch Auf Göppingen (GER) vs Cocks (FIN) 33:27 (13:12)

Cocks stunned the 2,200 spectators in the EWS Arena in Germany as the Finnish champions led 7:4 after 10-and-a-half minutes, making home team coach Rolf Brack call a time out for Göppingen.

The temperature outside the arena was minus seven, and the cold almost spread inside the hall as the visitors maintained a two-goal lead even after the time out, and not until the very last seconds of the first half did line player Kresimir Kozina manage to give the home team a narrow one-goal lead, which his side took into the break.

After the pause, Cocks managed to keep up with their opponent until 14:14 early in the second half, but that would prove to be the last time they were in the fight as Göppingen went to 18:14 and the 21:16 up.

At five goals ahead, there was no more doubt about the result, although the home team never got near the 11-goal win they earned in Finland last Saturday as the most they went up was by six.

"We got into the game well today and were able to make the result balanced for a long time,” said Cocks coach Gintaras Savukynas. “But then Göppingen showed us why they are the reigning EHF Cup champions.”

Göppingen coach Rolf Brack was not pleased, despite the win. “We were much too passive in the defence,” he said. “This allowed our guests to show what that they could do if you leave them and they were quite strong in the game.

“After half-time it got better, at least in phases, because of our basic quality in the tempo game we were able to use some counter-attacks, but on the whole our shooting rate was not good.”

Theoretically, Croatian team RK Nexe and Slovenian side RD Koper in second and third place can still reach eight points (they play each other on Sunday), but the German side will meet both teams in their final two games. If all teams end on the same points, the internal results among these three teams will decide the positions.