Motor and Porto reach the final at Lake Constance

Two participants of the last season's group phase reached the Qualification Tournament 2 final of the VELUX EHF Champions League, leaving two challengers behind.

Motor romped to an overwhelming win against Italy's Junior Fasano 36:20, while Porto edged the tournament's hosts Austria’s Alpla HC Hard 29:25. The two winners will play a direct match for the group phase ticket on Saturday, while the match between Fasano and Hard will determine which club will enter the EHF Cup in the third and which in the second round.

Qualification tournament 2, semi-finals:

HC Motor Zaporozhye (UKR) vs Junior Fasano (ITA) 36:20 (17:11)

Ukrainian champions proved in no uncertain terms that they are the favourites to reach the Group Phase from their qualifying pool, after romping to an emphatic win over Italian title holders Fasano in what was the premiere match of the new European Cup season 2014/15.

Surprisingly, debuting youngster Artem Kozakevych led the charge for Motor in his first European match. The 21-year-old right wing scored nine goals, the Montenegrin left back Zeljko Beharevic responded with seven goals for Junior.

"It was my premiere game for Motor and my premiere Champions League qualification. Of course I was nervous. Even after first goals I was still like on pins. In the second half we just overran Fasano. The performance of our defence and especially goalkeepers gives us good mood ahead of the main duel,” Kozakevych said.

Fasano took their heavily favoured opponents by surprise in the opening minutes and after Beharevic had scored the very first goal of the new season, they even managed to create a three-goal lead.

However, the men of Sergey Bebeshko quickly regrouped and through a seven-goal run they turned the tables from 2:5 to 9:5 and never really struggled in the match again.

FC Porto (POR) vs Alpla HC Hard (AUT) 29:25 (16:14)

The Austrian champions failed in the semi-final of the qualification tournament for the second year in a row and for the third time in total.

Porto overcame a bad start (0:3) and shortly before the half-time break escaped by two goals. The Portuguese champions sealed the final entrance early in the second half led by their two top scorers Joao Ferraz and Mick Schubert (each 6 goals). Boris Zivkovic scored eight for the home team.

„We played a good game for the first 25 minutes, but then it was easy to notice that the team's play is not perfect yet and the players need more time to get used to each other,“ Hard coach Markus Burger said for the official website of the club.

FOTO: Walter Zaponig