Paris (AFP)

The Paris SG handball players have ideally prepared for their Champions League quarter-final return leg against Kiel next Wednesday, winning their first trophy of the season, a fifth Coupe de France on the club's record on Saturday.

In the Robert-Oubron Sports Palace in Créteil, without a spectator due to the health crisis, Luka Karabatic's teammates beat Montpellier 30 to 26 in the final.

They thus defeated their pet peeve in this test, since during the four finals between the two clubs in the Coupe de France, the Héraultais had always taken the best on PSG (2001, 2008, 2013 and 2016).

This season, the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the Federation to reduce the formula of the Coupe de France to a single poster between the first two in the classification of the French championship at the end of the first leg matches, and it is therefore Paris SG and Montpellier who have won in a rather unprecedented way the right to fight for a trophy.

PSG confirmed their superiority after fairly wide victories in the Starligue (36-32 in Montpellier and 31-28 in Coubertin).

"Losing a final is never fun when you're a competitor. I'm proud of the team, because it's been a long time since I had seen such a state of mind, especially in defense", tried of positive Valentin Porte at the microphone of the channel L'Équipe.

- Huge performance by Nahi -

In the final on Saturday night, the Parisians dominated the debates from start to finish, even if, at the heart of the second half, it was luck that gave the six-fold reigning French champions a little boost, when the Montpellier have touched twice in a row the amounts of the cage of Vincent Gérard while the gap was not yet made.

The goalkeeper of the France team, however, made the necessary stops, at the end of the game, to make it clear to MHB that PSG had no intention of giving them any hope.

Paris left winger SG Dylan Nahi put in a tremendous performance, scoring seven goals, all in the game, as much as Mikkel Hansen who however took and scored five penalties.

"It was a match with a lot of intensity, with a beautiful spectacle. All that was missing was the spectators. We had to look for resources deep within ourselves," said PSG captain Luka Karabatic. , at the microphone of the channel L'Équipe.

Now it's time for another huge challenge for the Parisians: to go two goals behind against the German club Kiel, reigning European champion, in the quarter-final second leg of the Champions League, with the key to a place in Final 4 of the C1 on June 12 and 13 in Cologne (Germany).

"We are on ten days of madness with this quarter-final round trip of the Champions League with Kiel, and this final. We have known for a while that it was going to be ten intense days, we were prepared for it," said Nedim Remili after the meeting.

© 2021 AFP