Bouktit shines for Metz, CSM and Ikast enjoy perfect week
Round 8 of the EHF Champions League Women 2025/26, which is the last round of the tournament in 2025, started with three matches played on Saturday. They all were the reverse fixtures of the Round 7 encounters played the previous week, and the outcomes were the same. Metz Handball, CSM Bucuresti and Ikast Håndbold celebrated victories again.
We’re obviously very satisfied, even if we would have liked to be flawless like last season. In the end, we only missed one half, because we’re happy with the last 30 minutes in Györ — but it’s still frustrating. We’re happy with the first part of the season. We managed to win important big games, and we found the right solutions to bring back the points. We’re still in the race, and that’s a very good sign for the future.
I think Metz were the favourites for these two games, and they fully deserve four points. My only regret is our lack of resistance. I was satisfied with our first half, but we collapsed as a team after the break and couldn’t deliver the performance we were expecting. We made too many technical mistakes, we missed too many shots, and the gap kept growing throughout the match. They were the better team and they deserve the victory.
I would like to start by congratulating Sola and I must admit that I prepared these two games very well as I knew that Sola play good handball, and I am happy with the win. I would like to congratulate and thank the girls for these wins and also the fans as they came to support us today!
I would like to congratulate CSM for the two points. They were the better team in both games, they played a very good first half today, we didn’t play so well in defence. In the second half I think we showed a fighting spirit and as I told the girls at half-time, they should be more aggressive in defence and they did that. I think it is a good result for us.
We played two different halves. The first in which we were much better and could have ended it with a few more goals in our favour. They equalized relatively quickly and took the lead. They made changes in defence from 6-0 to 5-1 and nervousness crept in there. We missed a lot of shots. We deservedly lost the game, although we had our chances. When I follow the media, and there isn't much of that, is that Podravka's poor streak of four or five games is analyzed, because the question is raised as to how Podravka has such a streak of four or five defeats against renowned opponents. This means that we have worked great over the past two years. We have made a lot of things out of something that is not normal, which makes me happy.
In the first half Podravka put a lot of pressure on us and we struggled in defence. In the second half we changed our defence to 5-1 and that helped us a lot. Podravka struggled a bit because of that, they didn't find good solutions. When they started to play good again, we already had a good advantage. Our defence was the key difference. Another thing, we were very disciplined in attack. Once we started scoring, the pressure was on Podravka.
