Five things on Szeged - PSG Handball

News

After a month and a half without competition (due to Egypt 2021), Paris Saint-Germain Handball are back on the court on Saturday evening. They travel to Hungary, to take on Szeged in their rescheduled EHF Champions League Matchday 1 clash.

Back to work!
Before the international break, Les Rouge et Bleu ended 2020 with a European clash, beating Hungarian giants Veszprém 31-26 to claim third place at the Final4 in Cologne. And so it is with another Champions League match, against another Hungarian team, that Raul Gonzalez's men start 2021. While victory would be the best way to start the new year, it would also bing some extremely welcome points.

Objective: top of the table
Heading into Saturday's match, both sides have played six games - four fewer than Meshkov Brest, the only team in the group to have played all their scheduled matches. At the moment, the capital club sits in fifth place in the group with six points, just ahead of Szeged on four points. A win would propel the Parisians into the top half of the table - at the expense of Porto - and to within one point of third-placed Brest. It would of course also draw them closer to the top two spots (which qualify directly for the quarters), currently occupied by Kielce (eight matches, 13 points) and Flensburg (nine matches, 15 points).

Head-to-head
These two sides know each other extremely well, and even at the World Championship in Egypt, several of Saturday's key players were facing off as France beat Hungary 35-32 - notably pivot Bence Banhidi (6 from 6) and Nedim Remili (four goals). But the two clubs are also used to playing each other on the European stage; they shared a group last season, with Paris winning the first leg at Coubertin (30-25) before losing in Hungary (32-29). We also remember the quarter-final of the 2016-17 edition, where Les Rouge et Bleu made the difference away from home (27-30) before punching their ticket for the Final4 in front of their own fans (30-30).

Key stats
With the number of rescheduled matches, it is difficult to draw any statistical conclusions. However, we can still see that the Parisian attack scores a lot of goals. With 190 in six matches (156 for Szeged), they average 31 goals a match, four goals more than Brest, who currently boast the most prolific attack in Group A (276 in 10 matches). Paris' prolific scoring owes plenty to the efforts of freshly crowned double World Champion and tournament MVP Mikkel Hansen. With 46 goals in six appearances, the Dane is among the top five scorers in the competition, despite Paris's having a number of matches rescheduled (before the return to action and mid-week matches, he was even in the Top 3). The first Hungarian to make an appearance in the ranking is Joan Canellas, with his 29 goals (33rd place).

To follow the match (kick-off at 20:00):
- Television: Eurosport Player
- Live tweet: our official page


(Credits: TeamPics/PSG)