Paris take the day!

News

This is the kind of match we love handball for! On Thursday night, the leader of the EHF Champions League group B, Kielce, travelled to the Stade Pierre de Coubertin, to challenge Paris Saint-Germain Handball in their EHF Champions League Matchday 9 clash. After losing their opening game to Bucharest, Dylan Nahi (a Paris Saint-Germain Handball youth academy graduate) and his teammates were unstoppable winning seven in a row, including two victories against Barcelona (ending the Catalans' six-year unbeaten run at the Palau Blaugrana). The challenge was duly accepted by the Parisians, whose place on the table stood to benefit in case of a positive result - they could get to within one point of second place, which qualifies directly for the quarterfinals, and within three of their opponents on the night.

Warmed up by a very noisy crowd, Les Rouge et Bleu got off to an ideal start (3': 3-0). The defence was solid, the attack efficient and the atmosphere incredible (9': 6-2). The match got extremely intense and the temporary send-offs rained down. The capital club took full advantage of their power plays and Vincent Gérard even afforded himself the luxury of scoring from his own goal area (13': 8-4). The Parisian goalkeeper had started very strongly, also denying Arkadiusz Mojito from the penalty line (14': 8-4).

Even when it was our team who were man down - or at times two men down - they manage to keep their advantage (16': 10-6). A few minutes before the break, the Poles got their heads out of water and made up most of their deficit (25': 13-12). Kielce's goalkeeper, Andres Wolff, wasn't to be outdone by Vincent and made several saves from within his area. Fortunately, Kielce's attack didn't follow his lead and Raul Gonzalez's men capitalised by making the break thanks to a missile of Elohim Prandi (27': 14-12). But at the break, the match was still wide open (30': 16-14).

Be it technically or in terms of commitment, the deal remained the same at the start of the second half (34': 18-17). Polish right-back Tomasz Gebala paid the price for his aggressiveness: he was sent back to the bench for the third - and final - time. Meanwhile Vincent (elected man of the match) struck a new blow by stopping a second penalty, this time denying Alex Dujshebaev (37': 19-17). Following a magnificent chabala from Benoît Kounkoud, Les Rouge et Bleu got back to +3 (41': 23-20) but as the final ten minutes approached, the tension was already getting unbearable (44': 23-21).

However, our players put themselves in a slightly more comfortable position when Luc Steins managed to get the better of Wolff (47': 25-21) and our 'keeper stopped yet another penalty (50': 27-22). The minutes passed and, considering the time left to play, our lead became more and more consequential (56': 30-25). Paris Saint-Germain Handball held their nerve and claimed victory, toppling Group B leaders Kielce! Paris now sit in third, one point shy of second and just three off the top!

Raul Gonzalez, Luka Karabatic and Vincent Gerard's reactions:

(Credits: A. Gadoffre/TeamPics/PSG)