Odense earn first point in thriller against Metz

After a thriller, in which the score was close all the way, Odense HC earned their first ever Women’s EHF Champions League point on Sunday. The Danish hosts held Metz Handball to a 19:19 draw.

• It was Odense’s first ever CL home match, and first ever CL point

• Stine Jørgensen scored six goals for Odense, Grace Zaadi five for Metz

• Metz top Group A with three points, Odense remain last with one

GROUP A

Odense HC (DEN) vs Metz Handball (FRA) 19:19 (10:10)

From the start it was clear that the match would be a low-scoring affair. It took nearly three and a half minutes before Metz left wing Marion Maubon scored the first goal of the game. And it even took seven and a half minute until Stine Jørgensen converted a penalty to score Odense’s first home goal in the EHF Champions League.

“I think we had a hard time in the offensive part of the game,” Odense’s Mie Højlund said. “Metz Handball came with a very aggressive defence, and we had a hard time getting through this.”

After 10 minutes, the score was 2:2, for a great part due to two brilliant goalkeepers, Laura Glauser for Metz and Anthea Reinhardt for the hosts, and partly due to nervousness in the attack on both sides.

Slowly, Odense loosened up, while Metz benefited from Xenia Smits moving from the right to the left back.

The match stayed in the balance with changing leads for the rest of the first half, and this did not change in the last 30 minutes.

The defences and the goalkeepers were also dominating throughout the second half, in which Odense had a few two-goal leads and were leading most of the time, but without being able to open up a deciding gap.

Both teams had the chance to decide the match in the last minute but failed to do so by losing the ball.

“All in all I am pleased with the game today,” Odense head coach Jan Pytlick said. “I think that both teams should be happy with their point. The little things made the difference today. We have a hard time scoring goals, and that is what gives us the result we have.”