Impressive Barca bring Metalurg to their knees
FC Barcelona - HC Metalurg 35:17 (17:5)
FC Barcelona have brought Metalurg Skopje to their knees in a convincing fashion. They took the lead of the VELUX EHF Champions League Group C as the only unbeaten team in a match in which Nikola Karabatic has set another Barca milestone. After Veszprem had shattered the dreams of Zaporozhye on Thursday, Group A has already finished their Round 3 with two clear victories of Löwen and Zagreb.
To play at Palau Blaugrana is something completely different than to star on home ground at Boris Trajkovski - this was the lesson Metalurg Skopje have learned at their clear away defeat at FC Barcelona. Thanks to a brilliant performance for nearly 60 minutes the Catalan hosts remained unbeaten and took the lead in this group by five points ahead of the before unbeaten team from Macedonia. After beating Paris St. Germain in the previous round, Metalurg were on a high-flyer but the last season's VELUX EHF Champions League finalist brought them down to the floor very early. With a highly stable and movable defence Barcelona pulled the Metalurg's teeth in the early stages and forced guest's coach Lino Cervar to take an very early time-out, as his team was down by 2:6 in minute eleven. But nothing changed, Barca were completely dominant in today's top duel, they wanted to prove clearly that their draw at Metalurg's arch rival Vardar in Round 1 had only been a single failure.
Especially Kiril Lazarov was hot against his country-fellows, who were below by a double figured result already eight minutes before the break, when Sarmiento scored for the 14:4. Barca even managed to forge ahead to twelve goals at the break - and the one-sided match had been decided. Despite a strong performance of goalkeeper Darko Stanic Metalurg's deficit was 18 goals already at the score of 11:29 (goal number nine of nine of Lazarov), as also on the other side Arpad Sterbik (an overall of 18 saves) had a brilliant day. When Barca coach Xavi Pascual started a full rotation, his team lacked concentration for a while, but kept the 18 goal distance until the end. Best Metalurg scorer was Renato Vugrinec by six goals, while Karabatic (7) and Tomas (6) were - below Lazarov - best Barca scorers. And Karabatic made history on Saturday, scoring the 8000th Barca goal in their European Cup history. And the clear victory is even more impressive, as Siarhei Rutenka did not play for Barcelona.
