THW Kiel suffered its first setback in the Handball Champions League.
On the second day of the preliminary round, the North Germans lost to the Slovenian champions RK Celje after a poor performance 36:38 (14:17).
The best THW thrower was Patrick Wiencek with ten hits. Aleks Vlah also scored ten times for Celje.
The Kiel team, with whom captain Domagoj Duvnjak did not travel for personal reasons, failed to gain further ground after a good start.
Even the majority game with the seventh field player ordered by coach Filip Jicha didn’t work. On the contrary: The hosts pulled away from 4:8 (13th minute) to 8:8 (17th) to 15:11 (20th).
Celje’s goalkeeper Gal Gabersek played a large part in this, and the THW players failed again and again.
Kiel runs in vain
The start of the second half also failed completely. After three goals in a row, the Slovenians led 20:14 (32nd).
In the 38th minute, Jicha brought on goalkeeper Niklas Landin for Tomas Mrkva, who was by no means bad at keeping. But the courageous players from Celje always managed to keep THW at a distance.