EVERYTHING IS STILL OPEN

Kometal Skopje coach Andriy Portnoy proclaimed before the ChampionsLeague finals that he has an ambition that his club should be in women´shandball, what Milan and Real Madrid are in football, and his dream of at leastwinning the Champions League this season is definitely still alive after thefirst leg in Brøndby in the suburbs of Copenhagen. Slagelse won 27-23, but itis a big question, whether this four goal lead will be enough, when thetwo teams meet again in the Macedonian capital on Friday evening - alsoconsidering the fact that Kometal won no less than 20-12 at home, when the twosides met in the group stage.

Even first half

During the entire match both teams had great difficulties with theopponents´ physically strong defence and changing defence formations. Slagelsewere leading by one or two goals throughout an even first half, played at ahigh pace, and the home team were leading 11-10 at half time after havingmissed several great opportunities, including two penalties.

During the first quarter of an hour after the break, the pattern was thesame - Slagelse were constantly one or two goals ahead, but Kometal managed tofollow them. In the middle of the second half, though, Kometal´s right backKastratovic had to leave the match with a knee injury, and Slagelse could taketheir largest lead so far in the match, making the score 17-13 in theirfavour. However, a double suspension to Slagelse star Bojana Petrovic, whoobjected to a two minutes suspension, and therefore got one more on top ofthat, brought Kometal back into the match, and enabled the visitors toequalise at 20-20.

From 22-22, however, Slagelse seemed to be the physically stronger team,while keeper Cecilie Leganger made a series of vital saves, and from25-22 the hosts could take the 27-23 win, which was loudly celebrated by thevast majority of the 5 500 spectators.

Bojana Petrovic and Carmen Lungu scored 8 goals each for Slagelse,while Turkish international Yeliz Özel scored the same number for KometalSkopje.

Hoerlykke comment:

"It is difficult to say if four goals are enough before the secondleg, but considering the way the second half turned out, I think we should becontent with this result" said Denmark international Rikke Hoerlykke from Slagelseafter the match.

"I do not think we will be thinking about this result at all in thesecond leg - we will just go for a win down there too!" added Hoerlykke,and Slagelse´s assistant coach Brian Lyngholm agreed. "We are going toMacedonia to win. There was not much in the way Kometal Skopje played thatsurprised us - and we may still have a tactical surprise or twoready!" said Lyngholm.

Text: Peter Brunn