Kiel's miracle win without substitutes

THW Kiel played the second semi-final of the Champions Trophy against HSV Hamburg. One would believe that the two German sides cannot show new things to each other any more after meeting regularly in the Bundesliga and German Cup. Nevertheless, Kiel prepared some surprise again.

Anic and Lundström: only these two field players were on the Kiel bench after losing almost half of the squad because of various injuries. Good new for the Kiel fans: Karabatic was already with the team at trainings, but of course, no one wanted to take a risk with him. He will play probably within two weeks again. 

And the surprises: Lövgren was right back, sometimes right wing. Kavticnik often came to play in the back position in front of his home crowd (played for Celje many years) that applauded everytime he touched the ball.

Despite their problems, the THW players showed very easy, spectacular handball. As the HSV defence was not strict enough and Schwalb’s team did not play at a very high pace, Kiel could take some advantage already in the first half that ended 17-14.  

HSV were trying to put some more pressure on Kiel after the break. They could do it easily with plenty of high quality substitutions.

Szilagyi, Klein, Ahlm or Kavticnik scored easily, while Lövgren gave six assists today. 

Tired, but lucky Kiel

It was 29-23 in the 50th minute of the game when the Kiel players apparently got tired. Their only way to have a rest was to stay a couple of attacks on the right wing as the starting line-up played without substitutions. 

At the end HSV came very close with the goals of Hens. The endgame was dramatic: in the last minute HSV brought down their goalkeeper to send in Ursic for a seventh field player. The pivot was awarded an overtime 7-metre throw that Hans Lindberg shot high: the match ends 31-30 for Kiel.

Kiel will meet the hosts, Celje in tomorrows final at 15.30. The match will be broadcast on Eurosport. 

Top scorers:

Kavticnik 11, Ahlm 7, Szilagyi 6; Hens 8, B. Gille 7. 

Comments from the coaches

Zvonimir Serdarusic:
It was difficult without the injured players, but we tried everything for 60 minutes. HSV gave us the chance, our 4-goal advantage was mainly due to their failure in the first 45 minutes and not to us. At the end they increased the speed, but we won deservedly. 

Martin Schwalb:
It was a tiring game with many mistakes and many attacks where we hurried too much. In the last ten minutes we played well, but unfortunately we could not equalise to reach the 7-metre shots which would have been good for the spectators.