Barça was overtaken by Szeged at the start, but the Barça team reacted before reaching the break
Carlos Ortega’s men ended up dominating with pleasure showing a great level of play despite being at the start of the season
Barça started the defense of the Champions League title with a resounding victory against Pick Szeged (28-35) with a scare included in the first half, when Juan Carlos Pastor’s team took a five-goal lead. Barça reacted and ended up going over the Hungarian team.
DATA SHEET
Champions League
FCB
LINEUPS
Pick Szeged
Pick Szeged (15+13): Alilovic (Mikler, m.37 to 60); Sostaric (4), Tönnesen (2), Bombac (3), Banhidi (4), Makovsek (2), Frimmel (3) -starting seven- Radivojevic (1p), Martins (1), Garciandía (1), Bodó ( 5) Sita (1), Gaber (-) and Rosta (1).
barca
35 – Barça (14+21): Gonzalo Pérez de Vargas (Nielsen, m.17 to 60) ; Aleix Gómez (5.2p), Mem (7), Fábregas (7), Thiagus Petrus (1), N’ Guessan (3), Wanne (-), -starting seven- Makuc (1), Janc (2), Carlsbogard (1), Melvyn Richardson (6), Ariño (-), Lángaro (-), Frade (1) and Parera (1).
Partials every 5 minutes
4-3, 7-5, 10-5, 11-8, 12-14, 15-14 (rest); 19-18, 20-22, 22-27, 23-31, 25-34 and 28-35 (final).
referees
Referees: Bojan Lah (SLO) and David Sok (SLO). They excluded Tonnesen (m.8), for the Pick Szeged; and Mem (m.1), Makuc (m.3), Petrus (m.26), Aleix (m.30) and Fábregas (m.36), for Barça.
Incidents
Match corresponding to the first day of Group B of the Champions League played at the Pick Arena ‘Mihály Bérczi’ in Szeged before 8,300 spectators (full).
Barça started the game in the worst way, with an exclusion of Dika Mem on the first move. In the second minute it was Makuc who went to the bench excluded and from then on, Barça was practically in tow for the entire first half.
Little by little, Szeged grew and managed to overcome the Barça defense that, despite following the game plan, could not stop the rival. All his men were accurate and helped by the multiple stops of a Alilovic very inspired they put with a dangerous 11-6 in the equator of the first half.
Barca reaction
Ortega asked for a time out to scold his players and ask them to be more forceful in defense and above all “put them in”
With a run of 0-3 things changed on the court and little by little Barça was eating the ground to the local team, which was opening the court in Europe. The break was reached with a 15-14 that very few predicted at the beginning of the match.
Nilesen, huge in goal
After a few minutes of exchanging blows, Barça, with a much stronger defense and with Nielsen in goal replacing a little inspired Gonzalo Pérez de Vargasgot a partial 10-20 that put an insurmountable 21-26 on the scoreboard for Pastor’s men, who could not believe what he saw on the court and was very angry.
With a 7 out of 7 from both Dika Mem and Ludovic Fàbregas, whom Ortega has taken away the captain’s armband after signing for Veszprem for next season, and the stops of the recently signed Nielsen, a match was resolved without problems and that ended up making him eternal a Pick Szeged that went home desolate.