Viborg HK is ready for the club's third Champions League final after the 31:26 away win over Spanish Astroc Sagunto in the first leg was followed by a 32:28 home win Saturday evening. This means that Viborg has qualified for the final through a...

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Viborg HK is ready for the club’s third Champions League final after the 31:26 away win over Spanish Astroc Sagunto in the first leg was followed by a 32:28 home win Saturday evening.

This means that Viborg has qualified for the final through a 63:54 aggregate win, but the 2,200 spectators in Viborg Stadionhal had to go through much excitement, before the home team got that far. In fact Viborg “managed” to throw their fiver goal lead from the first leg away, before they really got started!

Shocking start by Sagunto
Anyone, who might have expected the match to be a walk-over for Viborg after the Danes’ relatively easy win in Spain, was soon proved wrong, as Astroc Sagunto got the far better start. With an aggressive defence and intelligent and patient attacking play, the visitors seemed to shock Viborg, who was behind from the start.

The fact that Astroc-keeper Elisabeth Lopez had considerably more saves this time, than she had in the first match, also played an important part. Actually, Astroc was able to increase their lead through most of the first half - from 0:1 and 1:2 via 2:4 to 3:6 and 4:7.

A team time-out requested by Viborg coach Tomas Ryde, while the score was 5:8 after 21 minutes and 30 seconds, did not help the home side at all. At 6:11 Astroc had already equalised Viborg’s lead from the first leg!

Viborg improvement
At that stage, however, the Viborg players finally seemed to realise just how serious their situation had become, and they reacted to that. The pace was increased, the attacking play got more concentrated, the defence also got better, and soon Viborg started to minimise the Spanish lead.

Viborg reduced to 10:13 and 11:14, and was only two down at half time - 13:15. The fact that Viborg’s French national team goalkeeper Valerie Nicolas, who did a marvellous job in the first leg, also started to save shots, contributed further to Viborg’s comeback in the match.

Second half dominated by Viborg
Astroc Sagunto managed to keep their two goal lead at the beginning of the second half - at 14:16, 15:17, and 16:18 - but it soon became obvious that the guests could not resist Viborg’s increasing pressure.

While the Sagunto players seemed to start realising that it would be more than difficult to re-establish their five goal lead from the first half, and thereby qualify for the final, Viborg managed to equalise at 19:19 - and at 20:19 after 40 minutes and 31 seconds the Danes had their first lead in the match; 20:19.

Astroc coach Alberto Pardos, who was replacing suspended Christina Mayo on the Spanish bench, did his best to try and find new tactical ideas in order to change the course of the game, but in vain. Instead Viborg took renewed leads at 21:20, 22:21, and 23:22, before they even increased their lead to 26:23, 27:24, and even 31:25, before the visitors were allowed to reduce the gap a little towards the end, so that the final result was 32:28.

Happy Rikke Skov
"It is just so big that we are ready for the Champions League final now!" said a happy Viborg back Rikke Skov, who only returned to the team recently after a long injury break.

"We got a bad start, but fortunately we managed to turn the course of the match. It is great to be in a Champions League final, but it is even greater to win it!" Rikke Skov added.

Although Viborg has been in the Champions League twice before - in 1997 and 2001 - the club has never won the tournament.

Viborg had their top scorer in German national team player Grit Jurack with 7 goals, while Montserrat Puche Diaz scored 8 for Astroc Sagunto - 5 of them on penalties.

Text: Peter Bruun