Montpellier was defeated by Kiel (31-21) on Thursday in the quarter-final second leg of the Handball Champions League, in northern Germany. MHB squandered its enormous lead of nine goals obtained in the first leg (39-30), which opened the way to the Final Four for the end of the thirty years of the Patrice Canayer era, its emblematic coach. The German four-time European champions had never conceded more than five goals in their rich European history.
It’s hard to imagine this epilogue: a last-chance shot from MHB’s Brazilian full-back Bryan Monte to try and equalize and clinch a penalty shootout. Except that the latter, like many others, found the goalkeeper of the German club Tomas Mrkva (12 saves, 41%) more prominent than the other goalkeeper, the Frenchman Samir Bellahcene.
The Héraultais, double winners of this competition (2003 and 2018), had the worst difficulties to score – only one goal during the last quarter – against the “Zèbras” who did not resign themselves to the fate of the spoils.
Too frantic
At half-time, the script was not ideal (17-12) against the German “Rekordmeister” (23 Bundesliga titles) and the 10,000 spectators at the Ostseehalle began to believe it. But these last fifteen minutes, which were too feverish, were fatal for Valentin Porte’s team (4 goals from 6 shots). Winger Lucas Pellas, who missed two penalties, triggered the fantastic scenario with his temporary suspension for protesting (25-20, 47′).
As a turning point, during this numerical inferiority, Bryan Monte lost one of his duels (1 goal in 6 shots) against Mrkva, allowing pivot Hendrik Pekeler to score in the empty goal (27-20, 49′).
In the process, the Brazilian polishing diamond (age 21) saw one of his passes intercepted and converted (29-21, 52′) and winger Yanis Lenne (4/6) left his teammates inferior for a shot in the face of Mrkva (56)’ ). The long-term absence this season of Ahmed Hesham and Kyllian Villeminot at back base ended up paying off.
Having difficulty scoring in a placed attack, MHB can regret the missed penalties (3 in total) which made the “Aufholjagd” easier. A return to the language of handball’s birthplace.
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