Improved form leads to success

The Russian champions Dinamo had a tough challenge at home against Oltchim last weekend, as the Romanians were undefeated and clearly leading the group at the mid-stage of the group phase of the EHF Champions League. In contrast, Olga Levina and her colleagues only had two points on their account from a victory against the group´s last-placed team, Buxtehuder SV.

Coach Radu Voina´s Oltchim team had hoped to collect two more points, and with this, a Main Round spot, but the hosts crushed the Romanian dreams and celebrated a 4-goal victory.

Dinamo coach Victor Ryabykh had already predicted a great performance for his side prior to this important clash, as he’d seen improved form from his girls from round to round. The Russians had a disturbed summer preparation as they missed several players of their squad due to national team commitments in different age categories.

In the game against Oltchim, the whole back-court impressed, with all three shooters, Tatiana Khmyrova, Anna Kochetova, and Olga Levina, all scoring at will, giving great confidence to the whole team. The trio scored 22 out of the 34 Dinamo goals and coach Ryabykh was very impressed by this performance.

The real match winner was someone else though, namely, goalkeeper Anna Sedoykina. The 27-year-old had a marvellous game in the goal of Dinamo, and even surprised the opponents with her top performance: "I’ve always thought that the most important person in a team is the goalkeeper, and today, Anna proved it by playing brilliantly. She shut the gate for several minutes and we just couldn´t score," Oltchim´s Russian international Ekaterina Vetkova commented.

After having lost the first duel by 5 goals, Dinamo led 32:26 six minutes before the end, but due to a two minute suspension for Levina, Oltchim closed the gap. The Russians only celebrated a four-goal victory at the end, which meant that in the direct duel, the Romanians are one goal ahead.

Coach Ryabykh was not happy about the last minutes of the match, but was pleased with his side´s second straight win in the tournament: "We must accept criticism for the dying minutes and will use it for deciding further matches. In this game, Anastasiya Pidpalova helped us a lot in defence and also scored decisive goals."

"Our team is moving forward and will go even further. The decisive game comes now against Itxako and if we beat the Spaniards by more than two goals, then we will have good chances to progress to the next round," added the optimistic coach.

Dinamo´s away game against last year´s CL finalist Itxako will be live on www.ehfTV.com (regional restrictions apply) on 5th November at 19:00 local time.