28.08.2007, 11:22
Pick Szeged beat Portland in Romania

Hungarian Pick Szeged won the friendly tournament in Timisoara (Romania) beating Portland San Antonio in the final by 24-23.

Pick Szeged beat Portland in Romania

Pick Szeged proved to be in better form at this stage. Both teams will be there in the Champions League, so it was a very hard game, almost as an official cup game.

Pick and Portland won easily against the local side, Timisoara, and Serbian Partizan Beograd.

The final of this tournament was not so easy for either team. Portland was without Malmagro and Vugrinec and they were not able to show good handball in attack. The Hungarian defence was a high wall for the Spanish, who tried to score from the wings. However, Carvajal, Hernandez or Andorinho had a very bad shooting percentage. Only Ortigosa scored 4 goals from that position. Kjelling was the best scorer for Portland with 7 goals from the backcourt.

Javier Cabanas was very satisfied at the end of the tournament with the performance of his defence and goalkeepers. Portland tried a strong 6-0 again that brought so many victories for the Spanish club before. Svensson and Matosevic shared the time in the Portland goal with a similar percent of saves. Matosevic being quickly integrated into the team and he is improving for every single game. The next test for Portland will be against BM Algeciras (with Nenad Perunicic) in Pamplona on Friday.

TEXT: Fernando Urra Goñi