EHF Cup: 3 former winners, 1 defending champion, 1 French team
EHF Cup: 3 former winners, 1 defending champion, 1 French team
Four matches only remain in the Men's EHF Cup to decide who wins the title this season. Besides defending champions Frisch Auf Göppingen (GER), who also host the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals on 20-21 May, the participants are former EHF Cup winners SC Magdeburg (GER) and Füchse Berlin (GER) as well as semi-final debutant Saint-Raphael Var Handball (FRA).
Those four teams are in the pot when the semi-finals of the tournament will be drawn on Tuesday morning at 11:00 hrs local time in Göppingen. Follow the draw and subsequent reactions from the club in EHF livestreams on ehfTV.com, ehfTV youtube channel and EHF Facebook, live ticker on eurohandball.com and tweets on the official @ehf channel.
Here are all major facts, figures and numbers of the competition ahead of the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals:
0 EHF Cup champions have managed to defend their title in the new format (implemented in 2012/13). After their triumphs in 2013 and 2014, Löwen and Szeged continued in the Champions League, while 2015 champions Berlin failed in the 2015/16 qualification. Göppingen are the first champions to make it to the EHF Cup Finals again.
0 French male team have ever won the EHF Cup - neither in the new nor the old format or the Cup Winners’ Cup.
0 national champions arriving from the VELUX EHF Champions League qualification made it to the quarter-finals.
1 team that started in EHF Cup Qualification Round 2 made it to Göppingen: Füchse Berlin.
1 team have their debut in any European Cup semi-final: Saint-Raphael Var Handball. The other three teams have all won the EHF Cup before.
1 host of the EHF Cup Finals won the trophy so far: Berlin in 2015. The same team failed in the 2014 semi-finals on home court, as Nantes failed twice in the finals against Löwen (2013) and Göppingen (2016).
1 former EHF Champions League winners - as every year so far - are still in the race for the EHF Cup trophy: SC Magdeburg (2001/02). They were also quarter-finalist in 2013 and 2016. In other years, it were later-on finalists Montpellier (2014) and Hamburg (2015).
1 of 54 matches since the start of the group phase has ended in a draw: Kolding vs Magdeburg (23:23) in Group C.
1 coach at the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals won the EHF Cup as a player - and he did it with the club he is coaching now: Bennet Wiegert (Magdeburg/2007).
2 winners under the new EHF Cup format are among the four participants of the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals: host and defending champions Frisch Auf Göppingen (2016) and Füchse Berlin (2015).
2 teams - Magdeburg and Saint-Raphael - are EHF Cup Finals debutants.
2 teams - Göppingen (8 wins in 8 matches) and Magdeburg (9 wins and 1 draw in 10 matches) - arrive unbeaten at the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals.
2 coaches of the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals participants have won the EHF Cup as a coach - both with Frisch Auf Göppingen: Velimir Petkovic (2011, 2012) and Magnus Andersson (2016).
3 times - including the upcoming event - Göppingen and Berlin have been part of the EHF Cup Finals.
3 - which means all - teams arriving from the quarter-finals won both knockout matches.
3 - which means all - German teams have won the EHF Cup at least once before: Magdeburg (1998, 2001, 2007), Göppingen (2011, 2012, 2016) and Berlin (2015).
3 German teams in the semi-finals have happened twice before: in the 2011/12 season (Göppingen, Magdeburg, Rhein-Neckar Löwen) and in 2010/11 (Göppingen, Lemgo, Großwallstadt).
3 nations are represented by the origin of the coaches of the previous EHF Cup Finals winners: Iceland (Gudmundur Gudmundsson/2013 and Dagur Sigurdsson/2015), Spain (Juan Carlos Pastor/2014) and Sweden (Magnus Andersson/2016).
3 participants of the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals finished top of their respective groups: Berlin (Group A), Göppingen (Group B) and Magdeburg (Group C).
4 nations are represented by the origin of the coaches of the four LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals: Germany (Bennet Wiegert/Magdeburg), Sweden (Magnus Andersson/Göppingen), Bosnia-Herzegovina (Velimir Petkovic/Berlin) and Portugal (Joel da Silva/Saint-Raphael).
5 of 54 matches since the start of the group phase - but none in the quarter-finals - ended with 45 or less goals.
5 - which means all - times the host of the EHF Cup Finals qualified directly from the group phase, skipping the quarter-finals (Nantes and Berlin twice each, now Göppingen).
5 - which means all - times at least one German team played at the EHF Cup Finals: 2013 Göppingen and Löwen, 2014 Berlin, 2015 Berlin and Hamburg, 2016 Göppingen, 2017 Göppingen, Berlin, Magdeburg.
6 matches of the group phase - but none in the quarter-finals - ended with a margin of 10 goals or more.
7 nations have been represented by the clubs in all EHF Cup Finals since 2013: Germany (9 teams including 2017), France (5), Denmark (2), Spain (1), Hungary (1), Romania (1) and Slovenia (1).
10 goals was the lowest margin in the quarter-finals (Magdeburg vs Anaitasuna 59:49 on aggregate), 12 the highest (Saint-Raphael vs Melsungen 61:49). Berlin vs Anaitasuna (58:47) was right in between with 11.
10 EHF Cup matches in a row (including the last season) have been won by Göppingen.
12 points from six group matches were earned by Göppingen, making the defending champions only the second team to gain the maximum amount of points in the group phase after Montpellier in the 2013/14 season.
13 matches - 9 in the group phase and 4 quarter-final games - were attended by more than 3000 fans.
15 nations will be represented by the players competing at the LIQUI MOLY EHF Cup Finals: FRA, GER, SRB, ROU, CZE, BLR, DEN, ESP, CRO, NOR, SWE, NED, AUT, ISL, SLO. Berlin have players from 10 different nations, Magdeburg 8, Saint-Raphael 7 and Göppingen 4.
16 matches - 14 in the group phase and 2 in the quarter-finals - ended with 60 or more goals scored.
17 times a German team won the old (14) or the new (3) version of the EHF Cup since its implementation in the 1993/94 season. 5 times the winner came from Spain, 1 time each from Croatia and Hungary.
18 goals was the biggest margin since the start of the group phase: Magdeburg vs Tel Aviv (42:24) in Group C.
21 away wins (18 in group phase, 3 in quarter-finals) were recorded in 54 matches since the start of the group phase.
32 home wins (29 in group phase, 3 in quarter-finals) were recorded in 54 matches since the start of the group phase.
68 goals was the highest score in a group-phase match: Berlin vs Ribnica (38:30) and Saint-Raphael vs GOG (32:36). 67 was the higest in the quarter-finals: Magdeburg vs Anaitasuna (35:32).
76 goals so far give Raphael Caucheteux (Saint-Raphael) the lead in the top scorers list.
+76 is the impressive goal difference of SC Magdeburg so far this season (including Qualification Round 3, group phase, quarter-finals).
3029 goals were scored since the start of the group phase, which means an average of 56.1 per match.
5926 spectators for the group match Berlin vs Ribnica was the highest attendance so far. The biggest number of fans in a quarter-final match was 4828 for Berlin vs Anaitasuna.
20,554 fans in total attended the four home matches of Berlin sinced the start of the group phase - an average of 5138 per match.
Top 5 of group phase and quarter-finals:
High-score matches:
68 goals: Berlin vs Ribnica (38:30, GP), Saint-Raphael vs GOG (32:36, GP)
67 goals: Magdeburg vs Anaitasuna (35:32, QF), Ribnica vs GOG (31:36), Kolding vs Tel Aviv (36:31)
66 goals: Magdeburg vs Tel Aviv (42:24), Berlin vs GOG (37:29), Granollers vs Midtjylland (34:32)
Low-score matches:
44 goals: Tel Aviv vs Tatabanya (20:24, GP)
44 goals: Cocks vs Benfica (21:23, GP)
45 goals: Anaitasuna vs Melsungen (23:22, GP)
45 goals: Porto vs Granollers (23:22, GP)
45 goals: Ribnica vs Berlin (20:25, GP)
Biggest margins:
+18 goals: Magdeburg vs Tel Aviv (42:24)
+16 goals: Tel Aviv vs Magdeburg (22:38)
+14 goals: Melsungen vs Cocks (33:19)
+12 goals: Magdeburg vs Kolding (36:24)
+11 goals: Granollers vs Porto (33:22)
Spectators:
5926: Berlin vs Ribnica (GP)
4902: Berlin vs GOG (GP)
4898: Berlin vs Saint-Raphael (GP)
4828: Berlin vs Tatabanya (QF)
4800: Göppingen vs Porto (GP)
4351: Magdeburg vs Kolding (GP)
4015: Magdeburg vs Anaitasuna (QF)
