Demanding start for Barça
Vardar Skopje - FC Barcelona 29:29 (15:19)
What a match, what a thriller, what an atmosphere: All handball fans, who did not attend the opener of Vardar, missed a giant performance of the hosting team, which was close to beat big favourites from FC Barcelona in the brothers duel of Filip and Kiril Lazarov. After the break Vardar turned a six goals backlog around and finally even gave a victory from their hands, while Barca were stumbling, but did not fall.
In the end the Catalans had to thank their goalkeeper Arpad Sterbik, who saved brilliantly twice against the last two Vardar shots, after Nikola Karabatic had levelled the score to 29:29 in the final Barca attack. Vardar were clear dominant in the opening stages and put enormous pressure on the seven times Champions League winner. The Macedonians - led by their Russian reinforcements – forged ahead to 7:3 - a wake-up call for Barcelona. Boosted by top scorer Siarhei Rutenka (in total eight goals) the Catalans equalized at 10:10, and then had taken full control of the match, taking a clear four goal advantage to the dressing rooms. When the result was 21:15 for the guest team, one could believe the deal was sealed - but then the incredible ten minutes of Vardar newcomer Alex Dujshebaev had started:
By scoring three goals he started the catch-up chase against his Spanish country-fellows, added by goals of additional newcomers Matjaž Brumen and Timur Dibirov (best Vardar scorer by eight goals). The hall went crazy, when Skopje first equalized and the even took the lead at 25:24. And in the final stages the host were highly close to send Barcelona home empty-handed. Vardar coach Zoran Kastratović was highly satisfied: "Against a strong team of Barcelona we showed what we had announced before the start of season.
If we manage to keep Barca below 30 goals we could play on equal level with Spanish champions. Sometimes David is able to beat Goliath, and this evening Vardar was the David. For Barcelona coach Xavier Pascual his team "showed a really good period in the last 15 minutes of the first half and the start of the second half. It was very hard to play in this atmosphere and we know that game will be difficult especially because as it the first Champions league match of the season." Macedonian Barcelona super star Kiril Lazarov shares the opinion of his coach, knowing the atmosphere in Skopje, but: "During the game we though we already had finished our work, but our rival knew how to punish our mistakes. Vardar showed an excellent game, and in future I think they will be much better. We could not win the games just with our name - Barcelona. VELUX EHF Champions League just begun and this result is good to take next matches more seriously."
