Paris (AFP)

Completely missed its first period, Paris SG almost managed an incredible comeback in the second act but bowed to the wire in the room of the Germans in Flensburg (28-27), Thursday night in the Champions League.

This defeat puts an end to a nice series of five consecutive successes for the Parisians in the queen competition of European handball and moves PSG away from one of the first two places in the group.

The Parisians remain third in the group with 12 points in total after ten games played, and are five points behind the Germans and seven over Kielce.

The Poles, however, have played three more matches than PSG and Flensburg.

The reigning six-fold French champions will host the Norwegians from Elverum (Tuesday) and the Hungarians from Szeged (Thursday) next week in 48 hours to finish their first phase of the Champions League.

The fate of two matches against Vardar Skopje, which were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and which could not be rescheduled before the deadline of March 4, will be decided by the European Federation (EHF).

- Missed opportunities -

Thursday in northern Germany, PSG showed two completely different faces.

In the first 30 minutes, Raul Gonzalez's players scored just ten small goals, including four by Denmark's Mikkel Hansen on penalties.

They often stumbled over an excellent Bosnian goalkeeper, Benjamin Buric with eight saves on 17 Parisian shots.

The second half did not start on a better basis for PSG, with a double numerical inferiority and a red card for left winger Dylan Nahi in the first minute.

It was then that the Parisians found more solutions, in particular by moving to offensive phases with seven and a higher tiered defense.

And the entry into play of Vincent Gérard in the Parisian goals was good.

Gradually, they came back to the mark, but in the last minutes, they missed too many opportunities to completely pick up the score: a shot from Gérard from his zone but poorly adjusted in the empty goal of Flensbourg, a failure on the crossbar from Viran Morros, many more saves from Buric (16 saves in the end), and a shot on the post from Nedim Remili on the last possession.

"There were two totally different games in the game. In the first half, we didn't play at the level we know us. We weren't aggressive enough. That was the problem and we put more energy in defense and counter-attack in the second half, "commented center-half Luc Steins after the meeting at the EHF microphone.

Before the last two matches of the C1 group stage, the Parisians will travel to Istres on Sunday in the French Championship.

© 2021 AFP