Onestep closer to the quarterfinal for Kometal!

With their third consecutive winin the Women’s Champion league this season, Kometal GP Skopje defeated the current European Champion Slagelse FH (DEN).  A clear victory for Kometal 20-12 (9-4)bought them one step closer to quarterfinal. It seems that aggressive andeffective defence is the new "trade mark" of Kometal GP Skopje. When this defence fails, the keeper Nataliya Borysenko"closes the doors to the goal". The club is showing an ambition for arepeat performance of 2002, when Kometal GP Skopje won theChampions League. Now theoretically, Kometal needs just onewin in the next three games to secure a place amongst the best eight clubs. This is first"hat-trick" from Kometal since 2002. The best group results Kometalhave achieved took place in the CL season 97/98 with a five win series.

"Normally six wins will be a record for us, our goal is to securea place in the next round. Now we are looking forward to first place in thegroup. I am pleased because we play much better in every game” - said Andriy Portnoy, Kometal GP Skopje coach.

Slagelse FH came close, but not close enough, to overtaking Kometalin the second half when they managed to close the gap with a narrow two goaldifference (9-7), and during the match played hard to change the results. Fromthe start, Kometal took the lead 5-0 and by the end of the first half, theMacedonian champions extended their lead to 9-4.

Borysenko's night

Ukrainian international Nataliya Borysenko once again showed that she was on good form. This time shesaved 15 attempts at goal, together with three penalties. In first fiveminutes, she stopped penalty shots from Fridrikas and Petrovic. Later in the game, Lungu also missed her penalty shot.

"This was her night. She putus back in game and stopped many crucial balls. Borysenko was part of thedefence team” - said captain Indira Kastratovic whoscored 5 goals.

Slagelse FH had the chance to reverse their fortunes in first fiveminutes of the second half, when they cut the lead to 9-7. After this, Kometalonce again had a series, where they quickly extended their lead to 12-7 and13-8. Yeliz Ozel scored 4 goals, Platon and Radchenko 3 goals.

Slagelse 15 minutes without goal!

The European champion needed 15minutes to score their first goal in this match (5-1). After 13 minutes Anja Andersen, requested a “time out” to advise her shocked players.However, the situation stayed the same. Slagelse made manytechnical mistakes and missed many opportunities to score. The Kometal defencestopped the guest back players Petrovic and Lungu. Both missed20 shots between them. Slagelse’s trainer Andersen was nervous and unable to change tactics.She tried to put the new fresh player, Fridrikas on left wing,two 6- meter line players, Rikke Schmidt instead of Leganger, but not even this could produced the expected results. Kometalthrough the talents of Kastratovic, Ozel and Platon extended the lead in secondhalf to 15-9 by the 44^th minute.

"Kometal played a differenttype of defence, mostly 6-0 and when it was necessary to cover Bojana Petrovicand Rikke Horlykke, kometal switched to a 5-1 defence. Slagelse did haveproblems and we had to adjust our defence. I am pleased that our players’returned to defence quickly and interrupted the fast breaks made by Slagelse.When you play good in defence and it looks to the team that results have tocome. We are one step closer to quarterfinal and need just to win against“Motor” at home.” - said Andriy Portnoy the coach from Kometal.

Slagelse players left the sportshall immediately after the match and did not attend the press conference. RikkeHorlyke scored 4 goals, the pivot, Melgard, scored 3 goals. Serbian Maja Savicscored just one goal from the two attempts she made.

Goodbyeand Good Luck! Naceva, Velkova and Cupic

Three Macedonian national players,and club legends, Gordana Naceva, Mirjana Cupic and Mileva Velkova haveofficially retired from professional handball. Last summer they decided toquit, and several attempts at organising a strong tournament failed, so theclub picked the Champions League game against Slagelse to be their farewellparty.

Only Velkova will continue to bedirectly involved with handball, as coach of youngsters, as part of the KometalGP Skopje handball school. Her husband, Ane Velkov is the goalkeeper coach forthe senior team of Kometal GP. Goalkeeper Naceva, graduate lawyer, is currentlynegotiating with Macedonian handball federation for the position of marketingdirector, and Cupic would like to finish her university studies.

"We believed that Kometal GPwould win, and this is the best present for our farewell. For more than 10years, we have played in the "green-yellow" shirts, and have had manymoments of celebration, joy and tears. Now we have seen that it is much easierto be in the stands than on the court” - said Mileva Velkova.

Text: Goran Antevski