Berlin secure first position; Polish sides take points
Wednesday might have marked the start of the round 13 of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League 2025/26, with all knockout round positions already secured, but the eight teams involved did not show any intention of slowing down.
We played a very good game today. We hit a technical level that we have been seeking for a while and at the same time kept our errors to a minimum. When that happens, we are a very hard team to beat. Aalborg didn’t get too many easy goals. With that being said, Aalborg has some world-class players who kept them in the game in the first half, but in the second our goalkeeper was able to deny them, and then we just kept running and running and ended up taking the win.
I think we lacked efficiency today, and at the same time we also made too many technical errors. We played too fast in some situations and made some poor decisions, which they were quick to punish. They played a smarter game today than we did, which is disappointing, because I really believed we had a good shot to take the win today.
It was a fantastic match from the first to the last minute. Of course, there were a few weaker moments, but the most important thing is the victory. The goal was to win by more than four goals, but we also want to win in Kolstad and give ourselves a chance to move up to third place. The Costa brothers are incredible — they can do everything and take a dozen or more shots each. But our defence was better and kept them under control throughout the entire match.
The Kielce team was better than us. In the second half, we had several chances to score, and if we had converted them the match might have looked different. The home side was more aggressive and more effective. We conceded too many goals from nine metres. It’s tough to play away from home with such a big goal deficit. I’m disappointed, but we have important matches ahead of us and we need to forget about today’s game. We have already qualified for the next round, and I believe the most important thing will be to enter the EHF Champions League play-offs healthy.
Congratulations to my players. They showed ambition and the desire to improve with every game, despite the fact that we can no longer move up or down in the standings. In the first half our defence was fantastic. Mirko Alilovic had an amazing first half and we were six goals ahead, just like in our first encounter this season.
We expected a bit more from ourselves, despite the fact that we haven’t been looking very good lately. Mirko [Alilovic] was also really good, especially in the first half, which allowed them to score many easy goals and widen the gap early on.
An exciting match. It could have ended with our victory, but also with a defeat. In the end, we managed to score a goal at the very end and win a point. I think we showed ourselves in an excellent light for the last time this season in the Champions League in Bitola. This is the path the team should take further in the championship.
It’s a very difficult place to come to play. Obviously, we’re very disappointed with the result. We need to take the lessons and learn from them, especially for our final group phase game against Magdeburg next week.
