Brest Bretagne Handball secured their fourth consecutive win in the DELO EHF Champions League and extended their winning streak at home to six matches after dominating the game against the German champions, BV Borussia 09 Dortmund, 31:25.
GROUP A
Brest Bretagne Handball (FRA) vs BV Borussia 09 Dortmund (GER) 31:25 (17:10)
- Dortmund, who had only 13 fit players and missed their top scorer, centre back Alina Grijseels, could only compete with Brest for 10 minutes
- a 5:0 run spurred by wings Coralie Lassource and Pauline Coatanea, who scored two goals each, lifted Brest to a 9:4 lead after 14 minutes
- after averaging 27.6 scored goals per game in their first nine matches, Brest's attack has registered an uptick in the last three matches, scoring at an average pace of 33.3 goals per game
- if CSM do not lose their game against HC Podravka Vegeta on Sunday, Dortmund will finish sixth in the group and will meet the third-placed team in group B
- while Brest earned their fourth win in a row and are finishing strongly, Dortmund lost for the fourth time in the last five matches, taking their tally to seven losses in the group phase
In-form Brest make for a scintillating group A climax
Brest Bretagne Handball need to finish the group phase with two wins to tie their best winning streak in the DELO EHF Champions League. The French side are one of the in-form teams of the competition, having won their last four games by an average of 6.25 goals per game.
Against Dortmund, their efficiency in both attack and defence allowed them to improve the number of goals scored, while their goalkeeping pair of Sandra Toft and Cléopâtre Darleux were nothing short of amazing.
Brest are now only one point shy of Rostov-Don, who are sitting second, but the two sides will meet in France in the last round of the group phase, after Rostov took a 26:24 home win against Brest in the first match.
Brest deserved their victory. I have a lot of respect for this team which has a lot of individual qualities and which has made good progress since the start of the season. Today it was easy to beat us because we made too many mistakes. In any case, we played in a superb atmosphere, with a lot of supporters, we are not used to it, and it was really nice.
It was a good game and a good day for us. We have been in good shape since the beginning of January and we were going to continue like this. We lost at the start of the season in Dortmund and we wanted to take our revenge tonight. At the start of the second half, we lost a lot of balls, it was difficult, but we fought and we were able to stay calm.
