First win for Viborg

After last Sunday’s 33-30 away defeat in the opening match against C: S. Oltchom Valcea, Viborg HK got their first win in Group D. The Danes defeated HC T-Mobile Buducnost by 36-29 in Viborg Stadionhal on Sunday afternoon.

Viborg were considered favourites in advance, but it took the Danes some time to prove the expected quality difference between the two teams. With a fast and inspired attacking play with a lot of variations, Budocnost managed to put a surprisingly passive Viborg defence under pressure throughout the first half. Viborg had particularly big problems with Buducnost’s pivots.

Viborg managed to keep a two or three-goal lead for most of the first half, but the Montenegrins managed to catch up every time, and at half time Viborg were only leading by one goal (20-19).

Attacking Viborg defence

From the start of the second half, however, Viborg managed to confuse and stress their opponents by changing their defence into a more attacking formation. Even though Buducnost managed to take the lead once again at 18-19, Viborg soon got control over the game to reach a decisive difference. The Danes were even leading by 9 goals at 32-23 and 36-27 before the visitors could score the last two goals of the match.

Christina Roslyng made her comeback on the left wing of Viborg that is handicapped by many injuries at the moment. The former Danish international replaces the pregnant Henriette Mikkelsen for the rest of this season. And it was obvious that Roslyng is still just as popular among the Viborg fans as she was the last time she played in the green and white outfit. Her two goals were celebrated even more loudly by the 1277 spectators than the other Viborg goals…

Ryde satisfied with the second half

Viborg’s coach, Tomas Ryde, was satisfied with the win and with his team’s performance in the second half.

“Our defence was a mess in the first half, even though Buducnost did not manage to surprise us in any way. Everything they did we have seen from them before. However, we managed to confuse them with a 4-2 defence at the beginning of the second half. From then on, our defence was functioning again. I think this is illustrated excellently by the fact that we only allowed Budocnost to score 4 goals in the first 17 minutes of the second half.” Ryde said.

Although the result was Budocnost’s first defeat this season, the visitors´ coach Tone Tiselj was not a particularly unhappy man after the match.

“We played probably against the best team of Europe and still we managed to catch up with them in the first half. We knew, however, that we would not be able to keep up with Viborg if they did their best. In addition, were we handicapped by having one player less on the court for most of the second half due to the many suspensions we got,” Tone Tiselj told Eurohandball.com.

Bojana Popovic was Viborg’s best scorer with 9 goals, while Marija Jovanovic scored 8 for Budocnost.