Tickets to Cologne to be booked as quarter-finals conclude
240 minutes on Wednesday and Thursday will decide the four participants of the TruckScout24 EHF FINAL4 in Cologne. On Friday 2 May at 14:00 CEST, the two semi-finals will be drawn in Cologne, where the final weekend will be carried out on 14/15 June.
Not much is decided after the first quarter-final legs, except that Füchse Berlin took a clear 37:29 home win against Aalborg Håndbold and Barça were the only away winners thanks to a 27:24 victory at OTP Bank - PICK Szeged. Sporting CP can become the first-ever Portuguese side that reaches Cologne and the 17th different participant at the EHF FINAL4.
The team agreed that we would do everything in our power to show that we are better than the result last week. We have an incredible strong home crowd that gives us the last percent we need. It will be an exciting game for sure.
I'm expecting a different game compared to the first leg, simply due to the fact that Thomas Arnoldsen will most likely be involved. That will make their attacking play livelier and more dangerous. Aalborg are a tough away game, in front of a tough crowd there. Nevertheless, we are aware that we are travelling there with a good starting position, but it can also go away very quickly. We were six goals behind in the first leg. It's a knockout game where everything is at stake. They will do everything they can to capitalise on their chance. We're not travelling to Aalborg to manage the lead, but with the ambition to win this game.
Now these will be the 60 minutes of our lives. It's a big responsibility to know that our house was sold out before this game even started. Our fans didn't want to see a game already decided and we're going to give it everything we've got. Each game has its own story and we have to build ours at Pavilhão João Rocha.
