05.02.2016, 12:00
Baia Mare to continue excellent main round run

GROUP 1 PREVIEW: Baia Mare take on FTC to claim third win in a row; Larvik welcome Fleury Loiret and Thüringer travel to Rostov.

Baia Mare to continue excellent main round run

Everything is up for grabs in the Women’s EHF Champions League Main Round Group 1, but after this half-way mark of this round the picture should become a lot clearer.

Thüringer need a miracle in Rostov and Fleury have to give their all to beat Larvik, while the crunch game of the round will be played in Maramures, where Baia Mare welcome FTC.

GROUP 1

HCM Baia Mare (ROM) vs FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria (HUN) 

Friday 5 February, 20:00 hrs (CET), live on ehfTV.com

The Romanian side might have started the main round with empty hands, but have won two in succession and are already sitting in a qualification spot from Group 1. They will be looking to make it three in a row against Ferencváros.

Baia Mare’s narrow wins against Fleury Loiret and at Thüringer was a result of just what the Romanian outfit was missing in the group matches: team effort and brilliant individual performances from the star-studded squad.

Goal-machine and current leader of the top scorers’s chart Allison Pinea was joined by Alexandra Do Nascimento and Lois Abbingh, who had a massive World Championship with the Dutch team in December too.

FTC did a great job against Larvik in the last round and the Hungarian champions are travelling to Romania to practically claim their place in the quarter-final.

Hungary had a disappointing World Championship run so key players of both the national team and FTC, such as Zita Szucsanszki, Szandra Szollosi-Zacsik and

Klara Szekeres are eager to re-gain confidence against the in-form Romanian team.

Rostov Don (RUS) vs Thüringer HC (GER) 

Saturday 6 February, 15:00 (CET), live on ehfTV.com

Thüringer failed to take advantage of the home court advantage against Baia Mare and are now in dire need of points as elimination is lurking for the German champions but travelling to unbeaten Rostov Don is no walk in the park.

The Russian team showed their vulnerability in Orleans where they were trailing Fleury Loiret by three goals at the break, but came up with a huge second half to claim full points.

On the contrary, Thüringer had an excellent first half against Baia Mare in Nordhausen but couldn’t finish the job and ended up empty-handed.

Thüringer will need to extended their good periods to an entire game at Rostov to avoid yet another defeat.

Rostov Don proved in France that they are not only about Ekaterina Ilina and Katrine Lunde as Regina Shymkute, Viktoriya Borschschenko and Iuliia Managarova were the most prolific scorers; Thüringer will need their stars, Sonja Frei, Eliza Buceschi and Svenja Huber to give their all to remain in touching distance of quarter-final berths.

Larvik (NOR) vs Fleury Loiret Handball (FRA) 

Saturday 6 February, 18.30 (CET), live on ehfTV.com

Fresh from winning the World Championship the Norwegian champions’ national team members are eager to take a huge step towards sealing their place in the quarter-finals, but newcomers Fleury are a tough nut to crack.

Fleury have lost both their main round matches but thanks to their great performance in the group phase they are still in the race for qualification.

However, Larvik are heavy favourites to make life seem harder than before for the French outfit, who struggle to win games away from home while the Norwegian champion have only lost once at home.

The French visitors will try to make the best out of the in-form Gnonsiane Niombla and Alexandrina Cabral Barbosa while Larvik can count on the brilliance of Nora Mørk and Amanda Kurtovic.

TEXT: Bence Martha / bc