Slovenian champions Krim Ljublana are ready for the fifth women's Champions League final in the club's history, despite of a 30:31 home defeat to Danish Champions League debutants Aalborg DH on Sunday. Krim's 24:16 away win in the first leg in...

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Slovenian champions Krim Ljublana are ready for the fifth women’s Champions League final in the club’s history, despite of a 30:31 home defeat to Danish Champions League debutants Aalborg DH on Sunday.

Krim’s 24:16 away win in the first leg in Aalborg means that coach Tone Tiselj’s girls have qualified for the final through a 54:47 aggregate win.

However, the second leg on home ground did definitely not turn out the way, Krim had planned. In fact, Aalborg managed to “eat up” most of Krim’s lead from the first match, as the second leg progressed!

Confident Danes
"We will have to have an extremely good day, and Krim will have to have an extremely bad one, if we are to win by 9 goals down here!" Aalborg´s Dutch national team player Natasja Burgers stated before the match.

Her words were going to come truer than she believed herself. Aalborg, who have had so much trouble lately, with injuries and players leaving the club, had an extremely good day and were close to bringing the Slovenian favourites in serious trouble!

Aalborg got the far better start, partly due to a fantastic performance by the team’s Norwegian national team keeper Katrine Lunde, who performed no less than 21 saves during the match - three of them being penalties. And as Katrine Lunde’s twin sister Kristine did an excellent job in the back court line in the attacking play - particularly in the first half - it soon became obvious that Aalborg was not going to be run over the way they were in the first match.

Furthermore, Krim’s Romanian national team goalkeeper Luminita Dinu, who did so marvellously in the first match, got a troublesome start this time. After only one save she had to leave the goal to Mirna Marencek around the middle of the first half - but after a 10 minute break Dinu came back and did considerably better with 10 more saves during the rest of the match.

Aalborg leading from the start
Aalborg obviously shocked their hosts from the start, taking the lead 0:3, 1:4, and even 2:6. Krim managed to come closer at 5:6 and 6:7 - but only to see Aalborg create now four goal distances at 6:10, 12:16, and 13:17, before the first half ended 14:17.

At the beginning of the second half Krim really seemed to be getting in trouble. While the 100 Aalborg supporters among the 4,000 spectators in the Tivoli Hall in Ljubljana really made themselves heard, Aalborg increased their lead to five goals at 14:19, and Krim’s aggregate lead was thereby down to only three goals.

At this critical point Krim was even hit by a two minutes suspension, but the home team managed to fight themselves out of the crisis.

As mentioned above, Dinu started making more saves than before in the match, and at the same time Krim’s wingers - Tatjana Oder on the left and Olena Jatsenko on the right - got more accuracy into their shots.

Krim could therefore reduce the Aalborg lead to two goals at 17:19, 19:21, and 21:23 - and even to just one goal at 23:24.

After 46 minutes Krim finally managed to equalise for the first time in the match - to 25:25. At this time it was, of course, obvious that Krim’s average win was secured, as Aalborg would never be able to create a 9 goal lead within the remaining 14 minutes.

Still more Danish power
Those who were assuming that Krim would now take over and win the game were proved wrong, though. Despite of having very few substitutes, Aalborg still proved to have more power left, and took the lead again at 29:30, before the match ended with an all in all deserved 31:30 win for Aalborg.

Olena Jatsenko scored 8 goals and Tatjana Oder 7 for Krim, while Louise Pedersen scored 7 and Kristine Lunde 6 for Aalborg.

In the final Krim will be facing another Danish team, Viborg HK, who Krim have defeated twice before - in the finals in 2001 and as late as in the group stage this season.


Text: Peter Bruun