Nantes won a 31-31 draw this Thursday against FC Barcelona as part of the seventh day of the Handball Champions League.
Courageous until the end, the Nantes residents snatched in the last minutes an almost unexpected draw in the Champions League against the giant Barcelona, reigning European champion, Thursday in their H Arena hall (31-31).
A final save from Ivan Pesic in the last second was welcomed as a victory by the Nantes residents, who then rushed on him, a sign of the performance signed by Aymeric Minne‘s teammates.
Led almost from start to finish of the game, without being completely left behind, the “H” went for a welcome equalizer at the end of this shock of group B, where FC Barcelona (12 times winners of the event ) looks like a scarecrow, still leader and undefeated. The Nantes residents are second (9 points), in one of the two places directly qualifying for the quarter-finals of the competition. In addition, they have a fourth match without defeat in the Champions League (three wins, one draw).
We had to wait until the end of the match, almost three minutes from time, and the only goal of the match from Nicolas Tournat to see Nantes get back on track (30-30). Subsequently, the excellent Aymeric Minne (7 goals from 11 attempts) briefly gave his team the advantage, but Barça came back on one of their last possessions. Before that, the H seemed both so close and so far away, sometimes trailing by four or even five goals in the second half, sometimes capable of coming back a few minutes later without overturning the Catalan mountain.
This is largely the fault of an omnipresent Emil Nielsen. The former Nantes goalkeeper (2019-2022) had a superb match with 17 saves, while opposite Ignacio Biosca was not to be outdone either (11 saves).
Back in France, almost three months after the wreck of the Blues at the Olympic Games, Dika Mem was also very valuable for Barça, with nine goals. But the Spaniard Aitor Arino missed his last face to face with Pesic, who then sealed a deserved draw for Nantes.
The two teams will meet again on the next day, November 21 in Catalonia.
