Dragons suffer to reach the final

FC Porto Vitalis and HCM Constanta are one step closer to the VELUX EHF Champions League Group Phase as both the Qualification Tournament 4 host and the Romanian champions won their respective semi-final on Saturday. Porto escaped unpunished after they squandered a five goal lead against Norway's Eleverum and survived a thrilling final minutes, while Constanta beat KRAS/Volendam from the Netherlands 34:25.

Both winners will face each other on Sunday at 14:00 hrs local time, the match will be broadcast live on ehfTV.com.

Qualification Tournament 2, semi-finals:

FC Porto Vitalis vs Elverum Handball Herrer 29:28 (13:13)

Ljubomir Obradović was happy in the end of the match, but he admitted the game was far from easy. “It was a very close game, we were better, and even had a five goal margin. The most important is we held on to the advantage, no matter how narrow it was." The comfortable margin was lost in few minutes, after a drop of performance which the coach underlines it cannot happen on Sunday.

“We got tired emotionally, yet we need more of that strength to win tomorrow," he said.

It was Alfredo Bravo, known as Quintana, who was decisive in the opening minutes of the game. He stopped a lot of shots, mostly from the 6m line, once FC Porto’s 3-2-1 was forcing Elverum to search for their pivot.

Ojala, the visiting line player was decisive to keep his team close on the scoreboard, however, when the blues began defending 5-1, Medina Perez, maybe the most influential player for the visitors in the first period, began scoring, to recover from a 7-5 to a 9-9. Porto had some opportunities to be three goals ahead, yet missed a couple of important counter-attacks, both with the ball hitting the bar.

At the break the result was 13-13, Elverum never got to be ahead, however their 6m efficiency was 100%, with 6/6, proving the home side was having a hard time to stop them there.

The second half began with much more speed, with both sides being more aggressive despite following the same strategies as in the first. Still, in the 12’ minute FC Porto got a three goal lead given by fantastic plays from Wilson Davies, who kept that margin in 21-18 with a fantastic aerial goal.

Elverum was struck by the blue performance during the second half and began struggling on offence, letting the margin slip to five. This advantage could not exist if it was not for Hugo Laurentino (Porto’s goalkeeper in the second half) and João Ferraz, the hot handed right-back who split the Norwegian defence.   

Incredibly, the visitors managed to cut the lead from five to one, with a good performance from their wingers, and also a bit of precipitation from FC Porto on offence. With five minutes to go, the result was 26-25 and the whole arena had the hearts on their hands.

HCM Constanta vs KRAS/Volendam 34:25 (19:14)

Experienced Romanian champions prevailed in the second semi-finals over team, who failed to make it to the Group Phase for the third time after unsuccessful tries eight and seven years ago.

Dolphins from the Black Sea were sailing safely to the final almost for the whole match. Their cushion grew to five goals before the break, but Volendam refused to give up easily and midway through the second half they cut the deficit just to one goal (23-22).

Remaining minutes of the match turned out to be a show of Constanta as they won this sequence until the final whistle 11-3.

"We committed too many mistakes what brought us to our knees. We fought, but they were sharp for 60 minutes and at the end they escaped us," Volendam player Matthijs Vink said for RTV N-H.

Volendam's Jasper Adams was the top scorer of the match with 10 goals, Alexandru Simicu led Constanta with seven.