GROUP B REVIEW: Catalan side celebrate their 42nd home victory in a row and extend their group lead to seven points
Only in the 10 minutes before half-time were visitors Veszprém on a similar level to their hosts Barça – as before and after it the only EHF Champions League participant with 10 victories from 10 group matches were dominant.
The 37:30 result was the 42nd Champions League home victory in a row for the record-winning Spanish side, who now have the optimum of 20 points in their account.
GROUP B
Barça (ESP) vs Telekom Veszprém HC (HUN) 37:30 (15:15)
- Barça’s 16th victory in their 23rd duel against Veszprém in history
- Seven-goal gap was the third-biggest ever in a duel between the sides, and the biggest one for more than 20 years (31:23 on 14 November 1999)
- Like in the first match last week (37:34), Barça scored 37 goals and Barça’s top scorer was Aleix Gomez with 10 goals from 12 attempts
- The home side had the better start, leading 13:9 before the visitors struck back, going on a 6:2 run up to the break to bring it all-square (15:15)
- Veszprém’s tall Dane Nikolaj Markussen scored five of his total eight goals in the first 30 minutes.
- First time this season Barça had not been ahead at half-time, but it took them only eight minutes to pull ahead to another four-goal-advance at 22:18 and they never looked back
- Seven times in 10 group matches so far, Barça have scored 35 or more goals.
A class of its own - mainly in attack
Barça are currently in a class of their own in the EHF Champions League. The record winners have scored 364 goals in 10 matches, an average of 36.4 and now have a goal difference of +77.
On Thursday, the Catalan side have the chance to extend their record series, when they have they face Zagreb for the second time this season.
TEXT:
EHF / Björn Pazen