If PSG secured first place in their group by beating Plock, Nantes lost to Kielce.
Mixed fortunes in the Franco-Polish duels this Thursday in the Champions League: PSG, by beating Plock, qualified for the quarter-finals of the Champions League while Nantes lost against Kielce on Thursday during the Matchday 13 of the group stage. With this controlled success (32-26), the 11th in 13 matches, the Parisians are even guaranteed to finish in first place in group B with four points ahead of Magdeburg and Veszprem, tied for second before the last day. Nantes, defeated 33-30, will have to wait until the last day to be sure to stay in third place in Pool A and thus inherit a more affordable opponent in the play-offs.
The teammates of Nikola Karabatic, absent for at least three months due to phlebitis in the right leg, ensured a tenth consecutive qualification for the quarter-finals of the biggest European competition. They however stumbled on a good opposition at the start of the game, against the Poles led by the Russian center half Dmitry Zhitnikov, author of five goals in the first quarter of an hour to give the advantage to his team (9-7) . The Parisians responded with a 4-0 sec in order to take control and never let them go.
The second period was largely to their advantage thanks in particular to the confident return from injury of Polish pivot Kamil Syprzak (six goals) and the rise of Latvian Dainis Kristopans (five goals), physically impressive since his return to the competition after a long unavailability of several months. The Parisians had already shown their bench depth and their cohesion by winning in Zagreb (33-30) then against Dinamo Bucharest (33-26) in February, despite numerous absences. Qualified, they can continue to believe in their goal of winning the C1, the grail targeted by the Qatari owners of the club since their arrival in 2012.
Nantes in shot failure
The game was much more complicated for Nantes against another big European, Kielce, in great financial difficulty since the disengagement of its main sponsor at the start of the year. Faced with French internationals Nicolas Tournat and Dylan Nahi, in the absence of Benoît Kounkound, injured, the “H” suffered. The Nantes people ran after the score for most of the meeting, leaving the 2016 European champion to take off from the first moments (11-6, 16th).
Clumsy in front of goal in the first act, they set the sights on returning from the locker room to pick up and even go ahead a quarter of an hour from the end of the match (24-23). But the numerous parries of the opposing goalkeeper Andreas Wolff (nine saves, 35% of saved shots) allowed the men of the prestigious trainer Talant Dujshebaev to get the best of the French. The 7-0 conceded by Thibaud Briet’s teammates between the 45th and 54th was fatal to them, giving a definitive advantage to the former partners of the French international Nedim Remili, who left at the beginning of the month for Veszprem to relieve Kielce’s finances. . Nantes, however, retains its lead over Kiel, fourth.
