Hand: Paris fall at home against Barça and abandon his invincibility in C1

Paris (AFP)

Avalanche of goals for the summit meeting: Paris fell Sunday at home against the Barcelona ogre (35-32) during the 10th day of the Champions League handball, and lets slip his opponent of the day ahead of the group.

This setback puts an end to more than five years of unbeaten Parisians at home: they remained on 56 matches without defeat in all competitions in their halls (Coubertin and Halle Carpentier), including 41 in the Champions League.

With this defeat, Paris SG is now only third in its group, with eight wins for two losses. Barcelona is alone in the lead with nine wins and one loss, ahead of Hungarians Szeged (8 wins, one draw, one loss).

The absence of Nedim Remili, only left-back of the Parisian team and a sprained right ankle mid-November, will have weighed on the final result.

Barça's victory complicates the Parisians' plans, as the group's first place is directly qualifying for the quarter-finals, while the second to sixth in each of the two main groups will have to go through an eighth final.

Throughout the match, both teams went for a shot, the gap never exceeding three goals, one way or the other.

The Parisians first dominated and arrived at half-time with a short lead (17-16), thanks in particular to Norway's Sander Sagosen (6 goals in the first period) and Icelandic Gudjon Sigurdsson (4), then both 100% successful.

If the start of the second period was more to the advantage of Barcelona (20-17, 33), the stars of PSG, the Danish Mikkel Hansen (8 goals) and the Frenchman Nikola Karabatic (5 goals) woke up to offer spectators last twenty minutes suspense.

But the Parisians brought on a plateau victory to the Barcelona with two temporary exclusions four minutes from the end (Dylan Nahi and Luka Karabatic), the parades of Vincent Gerard only delaying the deadline.

The European campaign of Paris SG will resume in March with two trips in Slovenia to Celje and Hungary in the field of Szeged. The latter meeting, at one of the best teams in Europe, is already dangerous, and the imperative victory to take the second place in the group, synonymous with home matches in the eighth and then quarters.

Paris will then receive, in February, the two weakest teams of the group, the Norwegians of Elverum and the Croats of Zagreb.

© 2019 AFP