14.01.2008, 04:50
Sensational victory against Zvezda

Krim Mercator’s departure from the EHF Women’s Champions League was spectacular! After very disappointing performances in the previous five rounds, the Slovenian team took the scalp from one of the top favourites....

Sensational victory against Zvezda

Krim Mercator’s departure from the EHF Women’s Champions League was spectacular! After very disappointing performances in the previous five rounds, the Slovenian team took the scalp from one of the top favourites.

“My players showed today just what they were capable of.” said Bojan Cotar after the match in Ljubljana disappointed that this kind of play was not shown in the previous rounds. There were few people who believed that Krim would win the final match of the Group Phase against Russia’s Zvezda especially because of the Slovenian catastrophe in Zvenigorod at the beginning of November. But this time it was very different.

Wings and little luck

The top Russian 6:0 defence formation was fatal for the back court players who were almost unable to score. Only from the wings were Dijana Golubic and Tanja Oder able to send the ball behind Saidova. At the other end of the court, Elena Polenova seemed to have the world in her hands as she scored goal after goal. In the 17^th minute, Zvezda was leading by 11:6.

It was at this point as Bojan Cotar made some substitutions and changes to the defence formation. The goals from Lekic, Kindl, Golubic and Hrnjic managed to close the gap in the score slightly and at the end of the first half Krim finished only one goal behind (16:17).

Only by playing hard in defence and with gaining possession of the ball earned Krim the counterattack chances that allowed them to take the lead 28:24. Coach Trfilov seemed to lose his cool at his players who defence had slacked leaving Krim too many chances. Even though a few seven-meter shots managed to keep Zvezda from the edge, it was luck on the side of the superb Golubic and Hrnjic made Krim's win possible.

At the end happy in Nürnberg

"We had lot of bad luck this year, I think that if all players were healthy at the beginning of the season we would be, for sure, in quarterfinals," But nevertheless they will continue in Europe: "It is time for some luck and the match in Germany was important for us and went in our favour. Krim will now say goodbye to Champions League after group matches for the first time since 2002.

TEXT: Maja Mastnak (Sportal)