Olympiacos returns to the final after
2019 to face Dunaujvaros, which will have a historical first-ever appearance in
the last match of the Euro League Final Four. Both teams won thrilling semis in
the Tuske Pool in Budapest. In the game between Olympiacos and UVSE the gap was
never more than a single goal though the lead was exchanging constantly but the
Greeks had the last laugh. In the next encounter Dunaujvaros went four goals up
early in the second only to see Uralochka arriving to the game and taking a
9-11 lead before the last break. But the Hungarians staged a comeback with a
3-0 rush so the Russians had to save the game to a shootout. But the ran out of
luck as three saves from goalie Alda Magyari sent Dunaujvaros to the final.
Semi-finals:
Olympiacos Piraeus (GRE) v
UVSE-Hunguest Hotels (HUN) 9-8
Dunaujvarosi Foiskola (HUN) v Dynamo
Uralochka (RUS) 12-12, pen: 3-2
Schedule for Sunday 17.45, Bronze
medal match: UVSE v Uralochka. 20.15, Final: Olympiacos v Dunaujvaros
As expected, the first semi brought a
tremendous battle between 2019 runner-up Olympiacos and Hungary’s top team
UVSE. The first half was more like a chess game with a lot of tactical moves
and position play. Neither side could find any tools to break the ice in six on
six, goals came from man-ups, penalties and in even numbers so it stood 4-4 at
halftime.
In the third the Hungarians seemed to
take the upper hand despite losing their top player Rita Keszthelyi after an
exclusion+penalty combo – still, their offense did not collapse. On the
contrary, UVSE managed to equalise twice, what’s more, with a double within 47
seconds they retook the lead for 6-7 and kept it till the last break.
The turning point came early in the
fourth. The Greeks, winning the swim-off for the first time in the game, netted
an action goal right from the first possession, then UVSE wasted a man-up and
Maria Myriokefalitaki soon netted another one from the centre for 8-7. After
two minutes of intensifying battling, Rebecca Parkes could level the score from
action with 4:48 remaining but UVSE couldn’t add any more – in fact this
remained their lonely hit in the final period. The Greeks managed to convert
their last 6 on 5 after a time-out by Eleftheria Plevritou and even though
there were still 3:23 to play neither teams could find the back of the net any
more. The win sent Olympiacos to the final for the fourth time since 2015 –
that was they year they won the event but lost their next two in 2017 and 2019.
In the second semi the other ‘home
side’ Dunaujvaros took a dream start. They were brilliant in offence, scored
from all angles to produce a 5-goal opening period and soon they went 6-2 and
7-3 up. Then they started to waste the balls in front and the Russians could
start playing their favourite counter-attacking game which brought them back to
even by halftime at 8-8. That demonstrated that unlike the previous match, here
the offences were out for an all-in approach so the game produced almost as
many goals in two periods than the first semi.
The flood was halted in the third,
especially at the Hungarians’ side. Their sparkling offence disappeared, though
this could partly be credited to Evgeniia Golovina who started delivering some
fine saves after some miseries in the first ten minutes. It was a sharp
contrast: Dunaujvaros could score 8 in 12:19 minutes, they netted only one in
the following 11:41. Uralochka was on the fire at the other end and with great
goals from Elvina Karimova they rushed to a 9-11 lead.
At this stage all bets were on the
Russians – but it was their turn to freeze in front. They missed crucial 6 on
5s early in the fourth while the Magyars overcame their shadows and Dorottya
Szilagyi netted her 4th and 5th for 11-11 then Brigitta Horvath came up with a
brilliant backhanded goal from the centre – and Dunaujvaros was in front once
more at 12-11. The Russians replied from the centre immediately, by Yulia
Lapteva, to break the ice after 6:11 minutes for 12-12 with 2:27 remaining. The
final minutes were thrilling, the Russians even went for a 7 on 6 in the last
22 seconds and their goalie Golovina took the shot from the left wing but Alda
Magyari stopped it. Dunaujvaros tried its luck after a time-out with 3.5sec to
go but their distant shot was also denied so the penalties decided the outcome.
And here Magyari was superior as she
could put her hands on three Russians shots – her team-mates missed two but
those three saves put Dunaujvaros through for a historical first-ever Euro
League final. Their biggest success so far at European stage was their LEN
Trophy victory in 2018 – eventually, they played that final with Olympiacos and
won 13-11. Now the prize is bigger, the opponent is the same, a rather exciting
scenario for Saturday evening.
Quotes Olympiacos v UVSE 9-8
Charis Pavlidis, coach, Olympiacos:
“We are absolutely happy to win this game, it was such an effort from my team.
I can hardly find the words now as I’m so emotional. You know, it was quite
hard for these players as we didn’t even know if we ever have the chance to
play international matches at all. The preparations were also interrupted
several times and we couldn’t really get to the level we wanted to for this
tournament as we couldn’t play any serious game since 13 March when we beat
Sabadell in the quarter-finals. On the contrary, UVSE had a great final against
Dunaujvaros so they had a much more promising road leading here. Still, we
could offer a great team effort even though we didn’t play well, it was far
from our best. The turning point was our first goal in the fourth period which
levelled the score. From that moment the team was able to believe that we could
really win this match against such a great team and I saw that in my players’
eyes.”
Marton Benczur, coach, UVSE “We
cannot do anything but to congratulate Olympiacos and try to accept what
happened here. Of course, we made a lot of mistakes, especially in defence. We
talked through before the match what the Greeks would do and they did exactly
what we foresaw, still, we were unable to react in the expected way. If I make
a serious account, I would say from the nine goals we conceded seven were
gifts. Maybe we were too nervous, too tense but this is normal in a Euro League
semi-final. So we have to talk about our own mistakes and deal with the
unexplainable exclusion of one of the world’s best players Rita Keszthelyi –
though believe me, in normal sports which are considered serious part of the
entertainment business this would be a ridiculous move by the officials. Also,
I don’t want to recall the last minute of the game as I don’t want to hurt
anyone. This is our faith, we couldn’t get any higher.”
Rita Keszthelyi-Nagy, captain, UVSE
“I think we found it hard to adjust ourselves to this style of refereeing and
to this playing situation… Never ever before it happened to me that I was
excluded and then a penalty was also called against me. We agreed what we
wanted to play but we was terribly slow in our offence, our drives which would
have broke up Olympiacos’ defence did not function properly and we passed the
ball to the wrong side constantly. We always missed something small in defence
and we conceded nine goals which didn’t happened to us for a long time. This
was our last chance as we all know that our team will be totally reshaped for
the next season. I think a couple of young players will have the chance to win
this trophy sometimes in the future, I don’t think I will have another shot in
my career. There is no way to bring this chance back as next year, provided we
enter at all, we will face rivals full of US and Canadian and Australian
foreigners again. The last time we could reach the final happened in a season
when teams could line up with home players. Now we had this chance again but
didn’t take and that hurts a lot.”
Dunaujvaros v Dynamo 12-12, pen: 3-2
Attila Mihok, coach, Dunaujvaros “We
knew that Uralochka’s speed was simply amazing so we had to take extra care of
that. For one and a half periods we were able to handle that thanked to our
disciplined offence and great shots. But once we started missing in front, they
could launch their counters and scored five goals or so from these situations.
At the same time my players started to get tense and could not find the proper
finishes in attack. We had to change our defence for the fourth period,
switched to pressing, thanks to that we arrived in front 7-8 seconds earlier
and we used this added time for building our attacks more precisely which ended
in more goals. We are really happy in these historical moments since this is a
huge success for our club. Now we have one day to prepare for Olympiacos –
three years ago we beat them in the LEN Trophy final, perhaps that gives us
some mental edge.”
Michael Nakoryakov, coach, Uralochka
“This was an equal match between two good teams. The game had ups and downs, we
tried to apply our fast attacks and that worked during the middle two periods
but the Hungarians are famous for their enormous shooting power and they just
demonstrated that in this match. I think a couple of turnover calls disturbed
our game in the fourth while our rival made most of its chances. The shootout
is about luck, they were a bit more fortunate this time.”
Alda Magyari, goalie, Dunaujvaros “At
the beginning we were really cautious in order to prevent their counterattacks,
we managed to pay enough attention to that. However, we are at the end of an
extremely tiring season so the girls got tired after a while. Still, we could
regroup ourselves, went for pressing in the fourth and that started tiring the
Russians as well who could score only once, from the 2m line. Our defence had
ups and downs but at least it was an exciting match. As for the shootout, at
the beginning I was like, ‘Gosh, they netted the penalty during the game, now I
have to stop as many balls as possible.’ So I went for them, just tried to jump
as high as possible and hoped that with my body measures I could catch a couple
of shots. I’m overjoyed that I could just do that.”
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