Vardar to start the title defence in a group with record champions

The freshly crowned VELUX EHF Champions League winners HC Vardar will enter the anniversary 25th season in Group A together with record champions FC Barcelona Lassa. Other six teams locking horns with the defending champions in the group are the German champions Rhein-Neckar Löwen, HC PPD Zagreb, Orlen Wisla Plock, MOL-Pick Szeged, IFK Kristianstad and HBC Nantes.

All 27 confirmed participants (plus one future qualifier) have learned their hurdles in the group phase after Friday's draw at the Ljubljana castle, which was conducted by two Slovenian left-handers Telekom Veszprem's right wing Dragan Gajic and Montpellier's right back Vid Kavticnik in cooperation with the EHF Vice President Predrag Boskovic.

In Group B the last season's runners-up Paris Saint-Germain are going to face the 2016 winners Vive Tauron Kielce, Aalborg Handball, Telekom Veszprém, HC Meshkov Brest, Celje Pivovarna Lasko and two German teams - THW Kiel and SG Flensburg-Handewitt.

"There is nothing you can really choose from in these two groups," Marko Savovski from HC Vardar commented after the draw. "Meeting Barcelona even without our Macedonian legend Kiril Lazarov will be a great pair of games."

The group phase starts with the first round on 13-17 September and will last until the beginning of March 2018.