2023-03-22 21:16

We played a sports-historic clash in the round of 16 of the 2022/23 campaign of the Machineseeker EHF Champions League, as we are travelled to our rival, Szeged. We had to wait until the 5th minute for the first goal of the match, Marguc scored from a penalty. Not long after, our captain rattled the net of Alilovic's goal, so we already had a two-goal lead. Corrales and the defence also performed well, and Remili scored his first goal, with which we managed to go up by three (11th minute 0-3). Thus, the home team called a time-out, after that we immediately stole the ball and scored. We had to wait for the first goal of Szeged until the 13th minute, when Frimmel scored. At the halfway point of the first half, with another goal by Marguc, we already led by five (15th minute 2-7). Corrales and the defence continued to perform excellently, which paid off, we already had an eight-goal lead (18th minute 2-10). In the continuation, the eight-goal difference remained constant, until the 24th minute, when Cupara first saved a 7-meter penalty, then we scored two goals in a row, so the difference was already ten. The scissors continued to open between the two teams until the break, thanks to this we could expect the second half with a 20-7 advantage.

At the beginning of the second half, Szeged performed better, thus they managed to come closer with three goals (37th minute 11-21). Momir Ilic called a time-out, after which Marguc scored his 10th goal from a penalty, and then Remili also scored, which gave us a 12-goal advantage again. After that, we found ourselves with a double man disadvantage, which we came out well, as Szeged came closer with only one goal. In the continuation, Ligetvári, Pechmalbec and Elísson also scored, so we restored our thirteen-goal lead (45th minute 14-27). In the goal, Corrales defended in an inspired manner, and the goals continued to come in attack, so by the 49th minute we had already scored twice as many goals as Szeged (49th minute 15-30). Turning to the crunch time, the essential part of the match was already decided, the only question was the difference. At the end, we led all the way and won a confident, thirteen-goal victory in the first match of the round of 16.

OTP Bank - PICK Szeged – Telekom Veszprém 23:36 (7:20)

OTP Bank - PICK Szeged: Mikler, Alilovic – Tönnesen 2, Stepancic, Bodó, Martins 5, Radivojevic 6, Szita, Gaber, Sostaric, Frimmel 3, Bánhidi, Garciandia 1, Bombac, Rosta 2, Mackovsek 4

Telekom Veszprém: Corrales, Cupara – Nilsson 1, Elísson 3, Ligetvári 4, Marguc 11, Lauge 4, Strlek 1, Lukács, Remili 4, Mahé 2, ElDeraa 1, Ilic 3, Pechmalbec 2, Vailupau, Sipos

2-minutes suspensions: 4 minutes and 10 minutes

7 meters: 10/7 and 6/5

STATEMENTS

Juan Carlos Pastor: First of all, I would like to congratulate Veszprém, they deservedly won. They played very well in the first half, while we had a lot of problems. Veszprém managed to advance with 6-7 goals. We have to continue working and prepare for the next matches. We are Szeged and we will fight all the way, on all fronts. Thanks to the fans for coming out so much, but we regret that we could not compete with Veszprém.

Momir Ilic: We had problems after the national team break. There were matches where we lost. This was my best match so far as the coach of Veszprém. Our defence was fantastic and so were we as a team. I didn't expect to win by such a big margin, but I don't think anyone did. However, this was only the first match, there will be another match in Veszprém. A big thank you to our fans, they were excellent today.

Zoltán Szita: Congrats to Veszprém for the victory, and I and on behalf of the whole team we want to apologize to our fans because of how we played tonight. They didn’t deserve it from us. We have problems, we have to work on it. We still have the chance to fix this, because we have a lot of games in this season.  

Gasper Marguc: We believed we can we win but not with such a difference. We didn’t expect this. We have a lot of respect to our opponent, but I think we deserved it. We always play with each other closed games, that’s why we didn’t expect this. We can be happy, but we are going to win in Veszprém in our fans. And after we will play a lot of matches against each other.

Here are a few pictures of the match: 

MEGOSZTÁS