Female handballers eye third straight Champions League win
· Yahoo Sports
The Situation
Team Esbjerg, FTC Budapest and Brest Bretagne lead Group A of the EHF Champions League with perfect records. Behind them, last season’s third-placed side CSM Bucharest and BVB sit fourth and fifth, with four points from four matches. Sola HK, Ljubljana and Buducnost occupy sixth to eighth place, all still without a point.
According to coach Kay Rothenpieler, the key to victory is whether BVB can get their fast-paced game going: “Esbjerg and Budapest overwhelmed Ljubljana with their fast-paced play. We have to do the same. If we win on Sunday, that would be another big step forward.”
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Team News
As in recent matches, coach Kay Rothenpieler will have to make do without three key players. Germany international Mareike Thomaier underwent an operation on her appendix just last Sunday. Ona Vegué (ankle), Emma Olsson (thigh), Lena Hausherr (knee) and Pam Korsten (knee) will also miss the match against RK Krim. Lena Hausherr was at least back taking part in the warm-up before Wednesday evening’s match against Buxtehude.
The Opposition
RK Krim were among the most successful European clubs in women’s handball in the early 2000s. Last season, however, they could only finish seventh in Group B of the Champions League. Things are still not clicking for the Slovenian side, who have failed to pick up a point from their four matches so far. All their opponents, though, have been among the leading teams: they lost 29:37 to CSM Bucharest, 29:40 away to FTC Toyota Budapest and 31:37 to Denmark’s Team Esbjerg. Their three-goal defeat away to Brest Bretagne (25:28) in the last round was a fairly close affair. “They are a team on our level. I think they are stronger than Sola,” said Kay Rothenpieler. “They are particularly strong in the backcourt, and their service to the pivot works well too. We will need to have a good day to beat Ljubljana.”
Pivot Lisa Antl stressed: “I watched RK Krim’s match away to Brest Bretagne. They played really well despite the 25:28 defeat. RK Krim are very strong physically, and that is obviously a completely different level from the Bundesliga. We are somewhat weakened by our many absences, but we still have to get our fast-paced game going from the very first minute.”
Historic Encounters and an Attendance Record
BVB and RK Krim Mercator share two historic encounters: in the 1996/97 EHF Cup season, BVB faced the Slovenian side – then known as Robit Olimpija Ljubljana – in the final. Although BVB won the dramatic second leg 30:26 at home, the eight-goal defeat (18:26) in the first leg meant they missed out on their first international title. Ljubljana were crowned EHF Cup winners. What made it particularly special was that the second leg, on 11 May 1997, was played at the Westfalenhalle in front of 8,700 spectators. This stood as the attendance record for German women’s club handball for almost three decades, until BVB broke it in 2023.
Anyone wishing to attend the women’s handball team’s home match against Ljubljana can still buy tickets from the online ticket shop. The match will also be broadcast live on Dyn.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.