Title defender Renovalia Ciudad Real beat Al-Sadd in the final match of the preliminary round to face THW Kiel in Wednesday’s ‘gold match’.

 

The twelve preliminary round matches have all been completed – and the second finalist of the 2011 IHF Super Globe has been established: It is Spanish title defender Ciudad Real, the winner of the last two Super Globe tournaments in 2007 and 2010. The team will face THW Kiel while Al-Sadd from Lebanon and El Zamalek from Egypt competing in the bronze final. The Qatari Al-Sadd team, Super Globe host and last year’s finalist, will play against Pinheiros from Brazil for fifth and sixth place.

The final promises to be pure world-class handball, as Kiel and Ciudad Real have won all EHF Champions League titles since 2006: Ciudad Real three times (2006, 2008, 2009) and Kiel two times (2007, 2010). Kiel lost two CL finals in 2008 and 2009 against the Spaniards but beat them in the 2010 Champions League semi-final in Cologne 29:27.

 

Please read the fixtures of Wednesday’s finals as below:

Final (8.30 pm local time):

THW Kiel (GER) – Ciudad Real (ESP)

 

Bronze medal match (6.00 pm local time):

Al-Sadd (LIB) – El Zamalek (EGY)

 

Placement match (5/6) (4.00 pm local time):

Pinheiros (BRA) – Al-Sadd (QAT)

 

Placement match (7/8) (2.00pm local time):

Al-Rayyan (QAT) – Southern Stars (AUS)

 

 

Ciudad Real (ESP) – Al-Sadd (QAT) 33:28 (15:14)

The remake of last year’s Super Globe final was the best match of the 2011 IHF Super Globe so far providing all ingredients of a top-notch match: fight, tactics, speed, brilliant goalkeepers, impressive goals and two teams mostly on a par. Al-Sadd had to win to reach the final, and the professionals from MKB Veszprem proved that they are one of the best teams in Europe. The first half was well-balanced to turn out a real clash in defence; both teams fought hard for every centimetre at the Gharaffa arena.

Al-Sadd had a better start to move ahead by two goals. Both giant goalkeepers Dejan Peric (Al-Sadd) and Arpad Sterbik (Ciudad Real) let their marks on the match in the first half. It was obvious that all players know one another well from the European Champions League. Ciudad defended well against Al-Sadd’s top scorer Marko Vujin, but could not stop pivot Renato Sulic. The Spaniards turned the game at the end of the first half to lead 15:14 when leaving to the changing rooms.

Right at the beginning of the second half Ciudad’s defence improved so that the Spanish club managed to punish every mistake committed by of Al-Sad to obtain counter-attack goals and to run ahead to 20:15 after only five minutes. Defending offensively the Spaniards put the Qatari attackers under enormous pressure to steal a number of balls. When the match became tougher the Spaniards intermediately extended the lead to 25:18 on minute 43.

But should they lose the match and miss the final, Al-Sadd had to fight for every goal in view of the goal difference compared to El Zamalek’s from Egypt in the fight for the bronze final. After Zamalek’s clear victory against the Southern Stars the Qataris could afford a two-goal defeat to reach second place in the group.

Knowing this, Al-Sabb put up its last reserves while the professionals becoming more and more tired, as they were on the field most of the time. The number of mistakes committed by Ciudad Real rose so that Al-Sadd came closer to three goals at 28:25 and could hope again for second place in Group B. In the final stage of the game, however, Ciudad Real had much more power and alternatives in store with some counter-attacks sharp as a knife. The final score seemed obvious but the course of the match wasn’t. Ciudad Real’s top scorer was Kiril Lazarow who netted nine goals.

Quotes after the match

Talant Dushebajew, coach of Ciudad Real: It’s very hard for all players to have three matches in three days, and we knew that it would be a tough fight against Al-Sadd with their recruited players.

Arpad Sterbik, player of Ciudad Real: I expect a great final against Kiel. Both teams are world-class and both know each other very well. We are eager to win but we know it will be really hard.

Ahmed Deabes, coach of Al-Sadd: We are satisfied with our performance in this tournament, although we play for fifth place. Today it was difficult, as we had to change players more often to secure their fitness. When they could recover some minutes we were able to come close, but when we became tired the margin increased. We had planned performing better than before and partially in the match we achieved this goal.