Barça beats Kiel and will defend its 'Champions'

BARCELONA, 18 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Barça beat the German THW Kiel this Saturday (30-34) at the start of the 'Final Four' at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne (Germany), to meet in the Champions League final with the Polish Kielce, in looking for his eleventh European Handball Cup.

The azulgrana team suffered in the first half to overcome Kiel who were playing at home in front of 20,000 spectators. An equality that Carlos Ortega's team managed to break for the first time in the 18th minute, with a goal from Aleix to make it 9-10. But the high percentage of effectiveness of the German attack (86 percent) prevented them from opening a gap on the scoreboard.

In fact, in the first half the maximum distance between the two teams was two goals in favor of the Catalan team, although Kiel reduced distances and Barça went one up after a last goal from Wiencek, the Germans' top scorer in the first thirty minutes with five goals from six attempts.

The start of the second half had a similar tone to what had already happened at the Lanxess Arena, but after 15 minutes of the second half, the 'culés' linked their best minutes and achieved a maximum advantage of four goals. For this reason, coach Filip Jicha changed the goalkeeper, who had only made four saves with a 14 percent success rate.

Langaro and Aleix made Barça's mattress bigger (25-31), and in the case of the Catalan winger he raised his goal tally to 12 with an impeccable penalty in the 49th minute. Thus, Kiel was knocked out after Barça's dominance in the track, but they knew how to recover in the last stretch of the match to wreak havoc on the Catalan defense.

The Germans did not give up and saw their great opportunity after Ben Ali was sent off, but Gonzalo took away Kiel's illusion by saving the penalty and the following shot. Subsequently, Barça sentenced the semifinal after closing the game with a four-goal lead (30-34).

Now, the Catalan team will try to defend the Champions League title this Sunday at 6:00 p.m. against Polish Kielce, who is coached by Talant Dujshebaev and who has his sons Alex and Daniel in their ranks.