The badly battered SC Magdeburg masters the difficult away task at the Rhein-Neckar Löwen and stays close to the leader THW Kiel. The foxes Berlin, on the other hand, have to be demolished.
The title race in the Handball Bundesliga has shrunk to a duel between record champions THW Kiel and defending champions SC Magdeburg. With the Füchsen Berlin, the next contender probably lost his chances for good, after the cup winners Rhein-Neckar Löwen and SG Flensburg-Handewitt had already said goodbye to the longest exciting championship fight in history.
The capital club lost 30:34 (12:15) at Bergisches HC and, third in the table with 47:13 points, now has four minus points more than the leaders from Kiel (49:9), who already won on Saturday at the TVB Stuttgart prevailed with 31:27.
SC Magdeburg (49:11) is the only serious competitor of THW in the final spurt of the season. The champion defied his bad luck with injuries and took revenge with the 37:35 (15:18) at the Rhein-Neckar Löwen for the bitter defeat in the cup final four weeks ago.
SCM trainer Wiegert is “proud” of his team
Without five injured top performers, including star backcourt player Gisli Kristjansson, Magdeburg was a long way behind in the top game in front of 13,200 spectators in Mannheim. It wasn’t until the middle of the second half that coach Bennet Wiegert’s team gained a small cushion with a 4-0 run from 24:25 to 28:25, which they passionately defended to the end.
“I’m damn proud of the team that did an outstanding job. What they did today is just as valuable to me as a title. It takes a lot of character. I’m very happy for the boys that they were able to reward themselves.” , said Wiegert on the Sky microphone. The winner’s top scorers were Michael Damgaard with nine goals and Tim Hornke with eight goals. National player Juri Knorr scored nine times for the lions.
Berlin, on the other hand, failed again and, due to the defeat at the BHC, also fell behind in the fight for second place, which entitles them to participate in the Champions League. “Today only one team was willing to do everything for the two points. And unfortunately it wasn’t us,” said Foxes circle runner Max Darj. “We weren’t good enough to beat them.”
THW still holds all the trump cards
The team from Kiel did better, three days after the bitter 27:31 defeat in the quarter-finals of the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain in Stuttgart. “I’m very relieved and incredibly proud of my team, which showed a lot of character,” praised THW trainer Filip Jicha after the confident performance on Saturday evening.
Thanks to the success, in which Sander Sagosen and Miha Zarabec were the top scorers each with six goals, the record champions still hold all the trumps in the title fight. “It was a very important win, it was like a final again,” said Kiel’s captain Domagoj Duvnjak, adding with a view to the end of the season: “Every game is brutally difficult, but we’re focused and we know what we want. “
Source: Stern
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