A look back on Zagreb - PSG Handball

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On 14 September 2019, Paris Saint-Germain Handball began their 2019-2020 EHF Champions League campaign with a trip to Zagreb....

For their first European trip of the season, the capital club were off to Croatia and, as is often the case for the Champions League, our team left the day before the match in order to have a training session at the Arena Zagreb. It was an epic warm-up session with a 'plastic ball' match between the 'young' and the 'old', which was won - just - by the latter, to the delight of Nikola Karabatic.

The next afternoon, the players' faces were serious once again as they left the hotel and headed for the Zagreb compound. Once there, the Parisians were able to wear a brand new outfit: their white jerseys!

On the court, Raul Gonzalez's men quickly took the lead! Efficiency in attack and a pair of imperious goalkeepers - Rodrigo Corrales and Vincent Gerard (8': 1-5) - were at the origin of this fine start.

The hosts then made up some of their lost ground (16': 7-9), but they were pushed back into their own half by an excellent Kim Ekdahl du Rietz. The Swedish international finished the match with seven goals from ten attempts and top scorer of the game and restored his side's comfortable lead (19': 8-12).

 

 

An advantage that Paris retained through to the break, after a perfectly mastered first half.

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Paris est devant au repos face à Zagreb après une belle première période ! #ZAGPSG

A post shared by Paris Saint-Germain Handball (@psghandofficiel) on Sep 14, 2019 at 11:50am PDT

In the second half, the show went on! Notably through Kim, who continued to wreak havoc in the home defence. This time, our left-back used his far-flung precision to add a little more spice to the scoreline (43': 22-27).

 

 

With money-time approaching, our attack was still going strong (50': 26-32), as was our defence! Just like Rodrigo in the first 30 minutes, Vincent was in tune with the game and stopped a Croatian penalty before repelling an opponent's near-post effort.

Paris Saint-Germain Handball won by an eight-goal margin, thus getting their European adventure off to a perfect start.

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Paris négocie bien son départ européen devant le @rkzagreb ! #ZAGPSG #championsleague

A post shared by Paris Saint-Germain Handball (@psghandofficiel) on Sep 14, 2019 at 1:26pm PDT

Check out our embedded video highlights from Paris Saint-Germain Handball's trip to Zagreb.

(Credits: J. Azouze/PSG)