Flensburg take lead in Group A

SG Flensburg-Handewitt have proved their top level in the VELUX EHF Champions League: After their Round 8 victory against Partizan Begrad, the Germans have started Round 9 with an easy-going win against Reale Ademar León on Wednesday.

Group A:

SG Flensburg Handewitt (GER) vs. Reale Ademar León (ESP) 27:22 (14:10)

German runners-up SG Flensburg-Handewitt have taken the lead in Group A – and put additional pressure on their domestic rivals from HSV Hamburg and the Russian champions Chekhovski Medvedi. Before their final match of the Group Phase in Russia, Flensburg are ahead by two points of their main contenders for the group victory.

Hamburg will be hosted by Partizan Beograd and Medvedi will have a high hurdle to climb at Montpellier this weekend – and both are below by two points each compared to Flensburg. León clearly missed the chance to take a pre-decision for the fourth spot in this group after beating Montpellier. Finally the result did not reflect the rundown of the match, as the Spanish team were absolutely chanceless against Flensburg.

The German defence – led by brilliant Tobias Karlsson - stood like a wall and goalkeeper Mattias Andersson nearly saved 50 per cent of León shots. In attack, Thomas Mogensen showed a lot of brilliant passes to secure the second strike in the VELUX EHF Champions League after the world championship break. Additionally, Mogensen scored five goals and was third best Flensburg scorer below Holger Glandorf and Lars Kaufmann, who scored seven goals each. Campos was best León scorer by five goals.

In the middle of the second half, the distance was intermediately eight goals at 24:16, though Flensburg had to replace their top wings Anders Eggert and Lasse Svan Hansen and defence specialist Michael Knudsen. “Now we have a real final at Chekhov, but I am really optimistic after our clear victory at home,” Flensburg top scorer Holger Glandorf said.