New season and new arena open in Finland

The wait is over. The 2019/20 season of the VELUX EHF Champions League begins on Wednesday with a Nordic encounter between Finland’s Cocks, who welcome Swedish side IK Sävehof to the brand new Cocks Arena in Riihimäki.

The Finnish champions will be aiming to pick up their first win of the campaign sooner than the seven games it took last season and will have a chance to take advantage of Sävehof’s turbulent start to the season.

GROUP C
Cocks (FIN) vs IK Sävehof (SWE)
Wednesday 11 September, 19:00 local time, live on ehfTV.com

• Cocks play their first competitive match in the new Cocks Arena on Wednesday as their league season has yet to begin
• the Finnish champions’ squad has changed much, with five new arrivals and six departures, but star players from their debut season in the top flight, Nico Rönnberg and Teemu Tamminen, remain
• Sävehof return to Europe’s elite club competition for the first time in eight seasons has been clouded in controversy as player-coach Jonas Larholm left the club last week, citing personal reasons
• their new coaching trio Emil Berggren, Kristian Berndtsson and Peter Möller won their first match in the Swedish league but then suffered a 28:23 defeat to last season’s runners-up Alingsas on Sunday