Sporting drew today against Eurofarm Pelister (24-24), for the Handball Champions League, in North Macedonia, where the ‘lions’ could have come away with the victory, which they no longer seemed to be able to escape. After having won in in a categorical way Veszprém, Hungarian champion, by nine goals difference (39-30), two weeks ago, in Lisbon, the Portuguese team had in their hands what would be their fourth consecutive victory, but the final effort was almost worthless in the challenge of fourth round of Group A.
With this draw, Sporting provisionally leads pool A, with seven points, against six from second-placed Dinamo Bucharest, who play Veszprém on Thursday (fifth, with four), and Paris Saint-Germain ( third).
Playing in front of their home crowd, Pelister started the match better, winning by short margins of one and two goals, which forced Sporting to chase the result.
The first-class players Salvador Salvador (five goals) Martim Costa (four) were closing the distance with effective penetrations into the Macedonian defense, looking to try to restore equality and take the lead, something that only happened in the 21st minute .
However, the hosts managed to regain superiority and fail less than the ‘lions’, so they reached half-time with a two-goal lead (15-13), largely due to some good saves from Nicola Mitrevski, former guard -FC Porto and Benfica networks.
At the restart, the Macedonians, led by Filip Kuzmanovski and Zarko Peshevski, each with five accurate ‘shots’, still allowed the ‘green and whites’ to draw 16 goals, but the four ‘flurry’ goals conceded further complicated the mission of the Portuguese champion.
With Eurofarm Pelister comfortable in the challenge, Sporting applied themselves and took advantage of their opponent’s relaxation to begin the recovery in the final stretch, with goals from Jan Gurri being crucial, before ruining everything in the last minute and offering a draw and , consequently, first point to Eurofarm.
On October 17th, the Lisbon team will host the German side Fuchse Berlin at Pavilhão João Rocha, in Lisbon, at 7:45 pm, for the fifth round of the competition.
