21.04.2008, 11:35
Lada take 3-goal lead

The Russians will start the second leg with a slight advantage: excitement guaranteed.

Lada take 3-goal lead

2.500 fans supported Lada Togliatti in the Champions League semi-final against Hypo. There were also about 50 fans coming from Austria with the guests with a charter flight.

But the game was not as spectacular as expected. Both sides made many technical mistakes and the scoring percentage was very low. Lada really could have beaten Hypo with more goals, but failed to make use of the “below-par” performance of the side of coach András Németh.

It was a very tight game in the first half with Lada in the lead most of the time. And with a very strong finish they went into halftime with a 17:14 lead.

But what happened to Hypo? Not a single goal from the wings, many mistakes in passing the ball.

In the second half Lada started well and they took a 19:15 lead after 33 minutes. But then a good Austrian period brought them back in the lead: within seven minutes they turned the score around, leading by 22:21 (for the last time in the whole game). After 51 minutes it was still 25:25, but then again Lada played in great form in the last minutes and won 31:28 in the end.

The game was dominated by many technical mistakes; both sides missed great opportunities in front of the goal. Hypo scored 28 goals from 54 attempts, Lada weren’t much better with 31 goals out of 54 attempts. In addition there were 19 turnovers from each team.

"We definitely can live with this score," said Hypo manager, Gunnar Prokop after the game. "But it was a terrible performance from my team, we missed too many shots."

TEXT: Eurohandball.com