FEATURE: Bella Gulldén has never scored as many goals in one game as in the final, while Jelena Grubisic thanked her teammates for her MVP award.
Dream comes true for the winners
CSM Bucuresti won the Women’s EHF FINAL4 by beating Győr. The Romanian champion had a lot of great performances but MVP Jelena Grubisic and top scorer Isabelle Gulldén stood out.
Jelena Grubisic was voted MVP of the Women’s EHF Champions League and rightly so. The Croatian goalkeeper had an excellent weekend in Budapest, played a vital role in the elimination of Vardar in the semi-final and put up a game-winning performance against Győr in the final.
“This was a dream come true. We were fighting with injuries and players who left throughout whole season. No one expected us to be here and to lift this trophy. I’m very happy and thrilled we won,” said Grubisic at the press conference.
The ex-Győr goalie did not deny they were underdogs and claims it made the victory even sweeter. What is more, it helped Bucuresti to win the title.
Grubisic even thanked her teammates for being voted MVP of the EHF FINAL4. “The work of all players gave us this win and I need to thank whole team. We all did this together. I was the one who got the award but once again thanks my team.”
Isabelle Gulldén had an equally outstanding season after which she was crowned as top scorer of the competetion. The Swedish back was solid against Vardar but against Győr she was simply unstoppable. She scored 15 goals and surpased the previous EHF FINAL4 record of Nycke Groot who netted in 11 times two years ago - at that time in the FC Midtjylland's uniform.
Gulldén, who was named the EHF Player of the Month (April) just three days before the tournament, reached top form just in time to hand her team the trophy. “I have never scored that many goals in my career but it is a great feeling that I made this right in this game.
The Swedish player, who celebrated with her teammates in tears, claimed even the players were surprised they played at such high level.
"When it comes to the trophy if someone would tell me six months ago that I would never believe that this is possible to happen. In the last couple of months we were progressing so much and we were surprised of the good performance on the court. Then when we arrived here everything was amazing, the atmosphere and all the other stuffs and we simply did it.”
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Bence Mártha / br