At MT Melsungen, the protagonists can hardly believe their luck after winning the European Cup. Only the match winner wants to have known everything beforehand.
When Timo Kastening looked at his gold medal in Hamburg on Sunday evening, he could hardly believe it himself. “We have lost so many times in the finals,” he said on the ARD microphone: “Now I am incredibly happy. It’s a liberating feeling.” Shortly before, the captain of MT Melsungen and his team had surprisingly won the Handball European League – the first title in the club’s history.
The team has finally gilded the past few years, said Kastening, who lost the DHB Cup final with the MT in 2024 and 2025, among other things. The North Hessians went into the Final Four in the European Cup as underdogs, and their semi-final victory against defending champions Flensburg was already a surprise. And the cheers after that 24:23 in the final against Kiel then even bigger.
Simic sent Gold medal photo before the game
Only one person was apparently completely confident of victory: MT goalkeeper Nebojsa Simic. “For me it wasn’t an issue to lose this game. I was 100 percent sure that we would win today,” he told be Dyn. He also tried to convince his colleagues of this in a special way before the game: “I put a photo of a gold medal in our group.” Simic himself played a decisive role in the triumph: he made 13 saves in the final. He was completely deservedly named player of the tournament shortly before the trophy was handed over.
During the celebrations in the hall, Melsungen’s coach Roberto Garcia Parrondo even knelt in front of his team with the trophy. “We played with greed and heart,” said the Spaniard, before returning to business with a wink and reminding us that there are still two games left in the Bundesliga: “The players asked for three days off, I said: only two.”
MT beckons participation in the Champions League
It is questionable whether the message reached his actors. “I make sure that no one gets weak here,” said Kastening, referring to the party night. And match winner Simic went one better: “Everything that happens tonight has a good chance that I won’t remember it. I’m going to drink now. The season is over for me. Simic out.”
In addition to the trophy for the previously empty showcase and the 100,000 euro prize, the MT also has a very special reward: a starting place in the Champions League for the coming season. In order for this to become a reality and Melsungen gets the third starting place in the Bundesliga, both potential German Champions League winners, champions Magdeburg and the Füchse Berlin, have to qualify through first and second place in the league – that’s what it currently looks like. For MT, that would be a double crowning achievement after a season that was messed up, at least in the Bundesliga.
