Flensburg on top but not without trouble

Reigning VELUX EHF Champions League winners SG Flensburg-Handewitt maintain third position in Group B after a narrow win against Besiktas MOGAZ HT at home in the Flens Arena on Wednesday night

GROUP B

SG Flensburg-Handewitt (GER) vs Besiktas MOGAZ HT (TUR) 31:27 (15:14)

It was tighter than most people had probably expected as the VELUX EHF Champions League restarted on Wednesday night with the Group B match between Flensburg and Besiktas.

The game started with a surprise Turkish lead to the delight of many of their fans in the arena celebrating their early lead by a couple goals.

Slowly, but steadily, however, Flensburg began to build up the lead that was expected from them, and this had a lot to do with Johan Jakobsson.

The 27-year-old Swedish right back had a really great first half in the Flensburg attack scoring some six goals in the first half alone as the home team went ahead 13:9.

However, if the 4,687 spectators in the Flens Arena expected that to be the end of this tie they would have been mistaken, as the visitors came back into the game being only one goal down at half-time.

At the beginning of the second half, the Turkish champions even pulled it level on a few occasions, before the hosts built up a gap again in the last quarter of an hour.

Flensburg never went any further than five goals ahead, though, and at the end the gap was a clear four goals.

The left wingers were the most successful goal scorers on both sides, as Anders Eggert scored eight goals for Flensburg while Ivan Nincevic hit the net seven times for Besiktas.