Baptiste Damatrin from the Nantes de Hand team, October 1, 2020. -

Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / SIPA

The Nantes handball team is going through a real ordeal in the Champions League.

The Nantes people have once again not made the weight on Wednesday night in the competition.

In Aalborg, Denmark, they lost 32-24, their third loss in four days.

🔚 It's over at the Jutlander Bank Arena



Despite a better second half, the young Nantes guard lost this time logically against a beautiful Danish team, led by a very good goalkeeper.

3⃣2⃣-2⃣4⃣ # AALBORGHBCN pic.twitter.com/OOY5Ex7n9D

- HBCNantes (@HBCNantes) October 14, 2020

It must be said that Alberto Entrerrios' players started their 2020/21 Champions League with the three strongest teams in their group.

In total, they suffered defeats at home against the Hungarians of Veszprem (28-24) and the Spaniards of Barça (35-27) and a prestigious success in the north of Germany in Kiel (35-27).

On Wednesday, they traveled to Aalborg, undefeated in three Champions League games (wins against Celje, Zaporozhe and Zagreb).

The hope of victory was slim.

The "H" indeed went to Denmark deprived of its two half-centers Aymeric Minne and Rok Ovnicek.

Only 15 minutes to believe it

With a team that included four players aged 20 or under, Nantes resisted a quarter of an hour of play (led 7-6, 14th), before completely cracking and being behind by seven goals at halftime (16-9).

At no time in the second half, they could not get closer to Aalborg, colliding with the impassable Swedish goalkeeper Mikael Aggefors (23 saves out of 48 Nantes attempts).

It is the young Thibaud Briet (20 years old, 4 goals), Baptiste Damatrin (20 years old, 4 goals) and Mattéo Fadhuile (18 years old, 5 goals), who have shown themselves to be the safest in attack, while the Spanish international wingers David Balaguer (2 of 8) and Valero Rivera (0 of 3, including two missed penalties) suffered.

With three defeats in four meetings, Nantes is obliged to win its next meetings, to relaunch in this group phase: next week in Zaporozhe (Ukraine) and in two weeks with the reception of Zagreb.

To play the rest of the competition, the “H” must take one of the first six places in his group (out of eight participating teams) at the end of the 14 matches in the group stage.

The first two teams qualify for the quarterfinals, the other four must go through a barrage of access to the quarterfinals.

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