Nantes handball players recorded their second defeat of the season in the Champions League, losing to the impressive armada of Barcelona, Thursday night at home in their H Arena in Beaulieu, a week after their feat in the north of the Germany in Kiel (27-35).
Nantes have two points in three games (defeats against Barcelona 35-27 and Hungarians against Veszprem 28-24) and will now face the four most affordable opponents in their group: the Danes of Aalborg, the Ukrainians of Zaporozhe, the Croats from Zagreb and Slovenes from Celje.
Starting with a trip to Aalborg in two weeks.
To compete in the rest of the competition, the “H” must take one of the first six places in his group at the end of the 14 matches in the group stage.
The first two teams qualify for the quarter-finals, the other four must go through a barrage of access to the quarterfinals.
As for their first match in C1 this season against Veszprem, the Nantes team hung on their opponents, but struggled physically at the end of the match.
“We tried to do our best, we came back but it was not enough.
When we got back to the score, they managed to regain the advantage and we had no more strength to come back.
It's a little disappointing, but tonight they were better than us, ”admitted Nantes captain Rock Feliho.
Mem and Fabregas shine
The French internationals of Barça Dika Mem and Ludovic Fabregas hurt Nantes, their respective positions of right-back and pivot.
Mem made a remarkable copy with 7 goals from 8 attempts, as did Iceland's Aron Palmarsson (6 from 7), while Fabregas did it all (4 from 4).
Returning to a goal (22-21, 40th), the Nantes people clashed for twenty minutes with the Danish goalkeeper from Barcelona, Kevin Möller (9 saves) who repelled the shots and annihilated the hopes of Nantes.
The coach of the “H” Alberto Entrerrios had to do without the services of his goalkeeper Cyril Dumoulin at the last moment, and the Danish Emil Nielsen could not repeat his performance of the match in Kiel (12 saves) Thursday night against Barcelona ( 6 stops at 20%).
Parisians still beaten by a goal
The Parisians, they lost in Belarus on Wednesday night, beaten in Brest (32-31), the second loss in a row for Luka Karabatic's teammates in C1.
PSG lost last week at home against Flensburg, and will have to raise the bar in two weeks at home against the Norwegians of Elverum - where former Parisian Luc Abalo has put his bags - for his next League match. champions.
If in their room in Coubertin the Parisians had totally missed their second period six days ago against the Germans in Flensburg, it was in the first 30 minutes that they mortgaged their chance in Brest on Wednesday.
On the pivot post, Luka Karabatic was defeated by Meshkov's goalkeeper, Croatian Ivan Pesic, missing his two shots, while Mikkel Hansen struggled to find the target on his attempts from nine meters (a out of four) and missed a 7-meter throw midway through the second period, quite unusual for the 32-year-old Dane.
The Parisians had great difficulty in controlling the ardor of the Slovenian center-half of Brest, Stas Skubbe, and physically paid for the efforts made in the second half to try to get back to the score.
Read also
Champions League: Nantes hits hard