It was the first part of D day in Ljubljana on Sunday when Danish Viborg and Slovenian Krim met in the 1st leg match of the Women's 2005/2006 Champions League finals. The quick match brought success to the Danish team, who have a two-goal lead...

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It was the first part of D day in Ljubljana on Sunday when Danish Viborg and Slovenian Krim met in the 1st leg match of the Women’s 2005/2006 Champions League finals. The quick match brought success to the Danish team, who have a two-goal lead before the return match on Saturday in Denmark.

Krim's coach was cautious before the match emphasizing that Viborg is really strong at the moment and cannot be compared to the team in January when they met in the CL group stage. And yes, he was absolutely right.

Superb Slovenian start
The match started off with a strong Slovenian performance with their standard aggressive defence stopping the best Viborg players Skov, Astrup and Jurack.

The first 15 minutes were controlled by the Slovenian champions as the Danish guests were only able to score two goals in the first nine minutes. On the other side, the Krim players send the ball behind Valerie Nicolas' back five times. It seemed that they were on the best way to a great performance.

But in the next few minutes the Danish team surprised Krim as they started to play a more aggressive 6-0 defensive formation.

A key point of the match was in the 17th and 18th minute when Liudmila Bodnieva hit her head and Gana Siukalo received a hard tackle from a Danish defender. This brought an end to the Krim rush.

Result equalized in 22nd minute
It was a the time for Viborg to get back into the match and equalize the result. It happened in the 22nd minute when Lene Lund Nielsen scored for 7:7.

The first half ended 12:11 – after a period with Krim mistakes and stronger play by Viborg.

Bad day
In the second half the 4500 fans in hall Tivoli in Ljubljana did not see attractive handball; but both teams played very quickly. It looked like Viborg was more focused on the match, whereas Krim was desperate to get a good result.

Sunday was not the day of the two times European Champions. None of the players were in the mood to score. “Goal getter” Tanja Oder scored just once, Natalya Derepasko scored seven times, only one from regular play (the others on penalty shots), Anja Freser and Ludmila Bodnieva were far away from perfect.

Chao Zhai's second half
This was one of the reasons for the first lead of the newly crowned Danish champions in the 35th minute. They organised their play solidly with strong performances on all positions.

The second half showed a strong Chao Zhai and goalkeeper Valerie Nicola – the first was unbeatable and the French goalkeeper saved attempts at important stages of the match.

In that way Viborg was able to win the match - even though their advantage was never bigger than two goals. The match ended 22:24, which is a good starting point for Viborg in the return match on Saturday in Denmark.

Return match on Saturday
After the match Viborg's coach Tomas Ryde was satisfied: “I am proud on my team. Krim and Viborg are the best team in the world at the moment and a two goals advantage is superb.”

German national player Grit Jurack was more cautious: “We can be happy but this was only the first half. We have to repeat this next weekend. I have to say that the noise in the hall was a big surprise to me.”

The second leg match between Krim Ljubljana and Viborg HK will be played in Denmark on Saturday evening.


Text: Maja Mastnak, SiOL-Sportal