Third was not a charm for Celje as Vardar remain victorious

Немаше трета среќа за Целје, Вардар повторно победник

Vardar - Celje PL

Once again Vardar and Celje didn’t disappoint performing an amazing handball show with Vardar taking full bags on 33:31 win. Celje did prove their progress making SEHA leaders sweat to reach the victory from beginning all the way until the end.

From the very beginning it was full of high level tempo and energy with a lot of goals on both sides. Vardar have managed to make a little step forward leading 9:6 after 15 minutes and upgrading that advantage to 18:14 before the break. In other cases this kind of lead guarantees a sure victory for Vardar, especially in ‘Jane Sandanski’, but Celje didn’t plan to give up.

They were persistent and had a great goalkeeper in Urban Lesjak when they needed narrowing the advantage to 25:24 with a little less than 15 minutes left to play and even leveling it at 30:30 three minutes until the end. Vardar’s hero was Luka Cindric who scored one and assisted for another goal, taking his team to 11th victory in 13 SEHA matches. 

Vardar remain on top with 35 points and Celje are on the other side fifth with 21 point.

Raul Gonzalez, Vardar coach:
Celje play really good handball, really fast and that’s why this was a difficult match for us. Against Celje you must give your 100 percent. We are top-placed team at the moment and must use this momentum. On Tuesday we will play against Zagreb, and that is going to be another hard match.

Stojance Stoilov, Vardar player:
This was a difficult victory. We knew that it was going to be this way, but victory is a victory. We are first, and I hope that we will keep it that way. We have two more games until the end of the year, so I hope that we will win them and keep the lead.

Branko Tamse, Celje PL coach:
Congratulations to Vardar but also to my players. The way they played, I think that they deserved at least a point, if not the victory. But, it is what it is.

Vid Poteko, Celje PL player:
Congratulations to Vardar on the victory. I think that we've played a really good game but unfortunately we weren’t rewarded for that. We can't do anything else but keep on.