Day 11, Group A – Radnicki Kragujevac (SRB) v Zodiac CNA Barceloneta (ESP) 10-14
The group leaders set the tone in the first quarter – though needed more than three minutes to draw first blood, but after the Serbs’ equaliser they scored three in 97 seconds, two of those coming from their lethal counters.
Falling behind by three wasn’t good news for the Serbs. For four minutes they could prevent the Spaniards from adding more – though they couldn’t get closer either. Then in the second part of the second teams netted two apiece, including a 53-second span with three action goals.
Nikolas Paul managed to expand the gap to four after two minutes in the third, then Radnicki had some chances to cut back the deficit but after Milos Cuk’s action goal they missed four extras before scoring from the fifth. By then Barceloneta had netted one already and Marc Larumbe could add another in the dying seconds for 5-9.
After three periods of relatively fine defending, the fourth transformed the pool into a shooting range. Teams netted 14 goals in 24 minutes – now they compiled 10 in the remaining eight, five apiece. It was an action–reaction duel, Radnicki scored first, the Spaniards responded almost immediately and that was repeated four more times. For three minutes, almost each possession ended up in a goal, this phase brought three goals apiece.
The bottom line was, all in all, that the difference never dropped below three goals, so Barceloneta’s win was not in danger for a single moment. In fact, they used all ammunition they had, fired 38 shots, 27 on goal so Lazar Dobozanov had to deliver 13 stops to save his side from a bad beating.
How they saw it
Uros Stevanovic, coach, Radnicki
“We tried to make the game harder for Barceloneta. At some moments we were successful but for most of the time Barceloneta offered a high-level performance, just liked they have done in the entire year.”
Elvis Fatovic, coach, Barceloneta
“We wanted to win here and we controlled the game for most of the time, even if we made some mistakes in 2nd and 3rd. I’m happy with the result as we keep that first position in the group.”
