Tickets to Cologne to be booked as quarter-finals conclude
240 minutes on Wednesday and Thursday will decide the four participants of the TruckScout24 EHF FINAL4 in Cologne. On Friday 2 May at 14:00 CEST, the two semi-finals will be drawn in Cologne, where the final weekend will be carried out on 14/15 June.
Not much is decided after the first quarter-final legs, except that Füchse Berlin took a clear 37:29 home win against Aalborg Håndbold and Barça were the only away winners thanks to a 27:24 victory at OTP Bank - PICK Szeged. Sporting CP can become the first-ever Portuguese side that reaches Cologne and the 17th different participant at the EHF FINAL4.
The team agreed that we would do everything in our power to show that we are better than the result last week. We have an incredible strong home crowd that gives us the last percent we need. It will be an exciting game for sure.
I'm expecting a different game compared to the first leg, simply due to the fact that Thomas Arnoldsen will most likely be involved. That will make their attacking play livelier and more dangerous. Aalborg are a tough away game, in front of a tough crowd there. Nevertheless, we are aware that we are travelling there with a good starting position, but it can also go away very quickly. We were six goals behind in the first leg. It's a knockout game where everything is at stake. They will do everything they can to capitalise on their chance. We're not travelling to Aalborg to manage the lead, but with the ambition to win this game.
Now these will be the 60 minutes of our lives. It's a big responsibility to know that our house was sold out before this game even started. Our fans didn't want to see a game already decided and we're going to give it everything we've got. Each game has its own story and we have to build ours at Pavilhão João Rocha.
(Ludovic) Fabregas was outstanding in the first leg. We definitely have to defend better against him, but that opens up new opportunities for Veszprém. That's normal. We have to build on the second half from Magdeburg, where we were very good. To prevail in Veszprém, we need two very good halves. I think we still have room to improve on the first leg; it's an away game in one of the hottest arenas in the world.
Magdeburg’s players form a fantastic team. They could easily come here and win by six goals. This is a real possibility, and we must work hard to prevent it. We have to do everything we can to win, but we must also acknowledge that we are facing an incredible team — one that can reach the EHF FINAL4 and even win it. They have outstanding players, a fantastic goalkeeper, amazing backcourt shooters, and world-class wingers — they are truly a top-level team. We must play at least at the same level we did in Magdeburg if we want a chance to advance.
We put a lot of focus for the first leg in defending a lot of their possibilities in attack and it turned out fantastic during many minutes. Emil Nielsen was exceptional as well. And that’s what we want for tomorrow. We’ll try to mantain this defensive level and we’ll try to improve our positional atack. We weren’t fluid. We have to give the ball to our wingers and to run more in the counterattack.
