20.10.2024, 10:30
First teams reach round 3, Celje score 43 goals

DAY REVIEW: The biggest round of this season’s EHF European Cup Men saw three teams advancing to round 3 after their double-headers over the weekend.

Round 2 of the EHF European Cup Men 2024/25 swung fully into gear on Saturday, with a number of the two-leg ties that will decide which teams progress to the next stage of the competition seeing the first match played. While some of the pairings played double-headers and thus have the winners already determined, others will contest the second leg on the coming weekend, and 16 more teams look ahead to double-headers starting from Friday. 

Italian side SSV Brixen Handball took care of their Faroese opponents H71 in Italy with a comfortable 74:63 win on aggregate. Line player Andrea Basic stood out with 16 goals, contributing to his team’s fantastic shot efficiencies of 75% and 72%.

Handball Westwien were the second team to advance to round 3 on Saturday. After taking a commanding 29:22 victory in the first leg, scoring seven unanswered goals between the 33rd and 40th minute, the Austrians had to sweat in the last minutes of the return leg. With 97 seconds to play, VIF enjoyed a six-goal lead in front of their home crowd in Vestmanna, Faroe Islands. Andreas Dräger and Gabriel Kofler cut the deficit to four in the last minute to secure a 59:56 win on aggregate for the Austrian side. 

TEXT: EHF / Tim Dettmar