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Kielce cannot surprise Barcelona

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FC Barcelona - Vive Targi Kielce 33:28 (16:14)

Everybody was keen on seeing the surprise, Slawomir Szmal had predicted for the first semifinal between FC Barcelona and KS Kielce. But in the first halftime, Barcelona did not have to cope a lot with the top team from Poland. The defence of the Spaniards with Perez de Vargas in goal was the key for a 16:14 lead of the Spanish favorite after thirty minutes. The duel kept to be tough during most of the second halftime.

But Kielce did not manage to gain the lead after 26:26 and Barcelona fought back during the final ten minutes. With a 7:2 run, Barcelona made it to the 33:28 victory, being the first finalist. Karabatic (8) and Bielecki (7) were the top scorers of this game. „We will try to surprise them," Kielce´s goalkeeper Slawomir Szmal had said before the start of the semifinal clash against FC Barcelona. Both of the teams started with errors. Barcelona seemed to have the better offence players from nine meters. Kielce could make use of his line player Julen Aginagalde but doing so also ran into turnovers. So, Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson scored 4:2 after eight minutes. But all in all, Kielce had the better attack and shot efficiency at the early stage of this first semifinal. Thus, Karol Bielecki tied the duel to 4:4 with his penalty shot after eleven minutes. Due to Gonzalo Perez de Vargas in goal, the Spanish top team stayed in front. Moreover, Karabatic and Tomás could easily raise the lead to 8:4 within only four minutes. Barcelona appeared to be omniscient about what Kielce wanted to play. The positional play in defence was astonishing. The captain marked the 7.000 EHF Champions League goal in club history. Yesterday, Tomás had voted for Kiril Lazarov to earn this record but also had uttered slight hopes for himself.

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Barcelona´s offensive performance was not constant but Kielce could not benefit, neither with Jurecki as second pivot. Karabatic scored 10:7 after 20 minutes and Sigurdsson leveled the three goal lead again at 13:10, five minutes before the halftime whistle. In this difficult situation for the opponent, Kielce´s aficionados tried to boost their team and were successful. Mateusz Jachlewski and Tobias Reichmann scored 13:12. For most of the first halftime, Kielce´s defence had been to weak in order to stop Barcelona´s attackers. And also now, the favorite could easily score, even when Kielce replaced the goalkeeper with a further field player in a short-handed situation. So, Barcelona earned a 16:14 lead. Kielce pinned their hopes for the second half mainly on Karol Bielecki who had scored fourfold out of only four attempts. But obviously, Julen Aginagalde was not ready to play and had major physical problems. So, Kielce had to substitute him with Michal Jurecki and Barcelona quickly raised their lead to 19:14, with goals from Sorhaindo and Sigurdsson. This made the victory for Kielce even harder but their fans continuously cheered and then it was Krzysztof Lijewski with the 19:18 goal.

Literally out of nothing, the Polish team had created a situation where Barcelona needed a team time-out. When Manuel Strlek equalised at 20:20 after 38 minutes, the fans of Kielce were finally euphoric. But in the largely physical duel, Barcelona seemed to defend a small lead. Nikola Karabatic did a great job together with line-players Cedric Sorhaindo, but Kielce eagerly fought back. When Grzegorz Tkaczyk scored 25:25 after 44 minutes, the game was still tied. Then, Kielce missed threefold against Danijel Saric who was in goal instead of Perez de Vargas. But it remained a thriller as Kiril Lazarov missed the 27:25. The game could still tilt as Kielce had largely improved their positional play in defence. But it came out different. The 27:26 ought to be the last time then Kielce managed to pull one goal back. After 50 minutes, Kiril Lazarov and Nikola Karabatic with his seventh goal raised Barcelona´s lead to 30:27. There was too little movement in offence on the part of Kielce in order to still be able to score easily against the Spanish favourites. Moreover, Barcelona often managed to push Michal Jurecki out of the danger zone. When Saric saved a penalty shot from Bielecki, the show was over for Kielce, at 31:27 after 57 minutes. At the late stage, Kielce could not countervail the drop out of Aginagalde.

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