Metz clinch quarter-finals spot, Odense beat Ikast to shake up Group B
The EHF Champions League Women 2025/26 group phase penultimate round concluded on Sunday. In Group A, Metz Handball confirmed their quarter-final place after beating BV Borussia Dortmund, Storhamar kept their play-off hopes alive by overcoming OTP Group Budućnost, and Gloria Bistrița secured fourth place. With one round to go, the race in Group B remains wide open, with five teams separated by just four points after Odense Håndbold climbed to second place with a strong second-half performance against Ikast.
Our energy was good. But in the last ten minutes, we made a few easy turnovers, and Metz capitalised on them. In the end, though, the margin was far too big.
It was a tough match, but we knew almost everything — not only about the team but also about the possibilities for Dortmund. We knew that if they did not win a match, it would depend on Storhamar. So we were ready for it. But we also wanted to qualify for the quarter-finals, so we wanted to win. We started well in the match, but then they came back, and when it was 21:21, we were not so sure that we would win. But we came back stronger in the last ten minutes.
A well-deserved victory for Storhamar. I wish them success in the final round as well, as this was a do-or-die match for them in terms of advancing to the next stage.
We lost the game in the first half. Even before the match, I said that if we kept the number of technical errors below ten, we would be close. We made twelve in total, but ten of them came in the first half, which allowed the gap to grow.
When the difference reached six goals in their favor, this young, inexperienced, tired team, without rotation, tried to come back and managed to close the gap. However, whenever we came close to reducing the deficit to two goals, fatigue caused us to miss clear chances.
In the second half, we made only two technical errors. Had that been the case in the first half as well, I believe we would be celebrating today. We were tense, and the worst part is that the technical errors were unforced and directly led to goals conceded, leaving us no chance to recover defensively.
Yeah, of course we are happy. We take this victory for next week and we need to win also the game next weekend and we are still in the Champions League. We want to do it
It was a really high-level game. Both teams could have won. In defence, the team fought for 60 minutes, but I think DVSC have a high-quality team and we had to work very, very hard. I think this result secured fourth place for us, and I want to congratulate my players on this win and on our position in the EHF Champions League so far.
Congratulations to Bistrita, it was nice to play here, always good to play in front of this fans. We know our mistakes and weak points, we know where we need to improve. It s always sad when you lose but it was really nice to play here.
We’re disappointed because we felt that we had a good grip on the match. I’d like to praise the team for the aggressiveness and intensity we showed in the first half. We came out poorly in the second half and should have switched to an offensive defence earlier, because that put them under pressure, but our attack just didn’t work in the second half.
A tough game, obviously, but we are very happy with the win in the end. We didn’t perform well enough in defence in the first half, and we missed too many chances as well. In the second half, we stepped up and showed that we deserved the win.
