Five-times SEHA - Gazprom League champions, Vardar will open the new SEHA season on Tuesday, 3rd of September at 8:45 PM (CET) in Jane Sandanski hall. Vardar will play against the newcomers, Beijing Sport University from China.

In the new season, Vardar will try to defend the last season’s title. They played eight matches in the pre-season and finished third at the IHF Super Globe. Team from Skopje recently welcomed a new-old face, Gleb Kalarash, as well as some other reinformecents. Pavel Artman, Arturs Kugis, Sergey Gorpishin, Dimitar Dimitrioski, Jose Toledo, Domen Sikoshek Pelko alongside the coach David Pisonero will be the new faces in Vardar’s team this season. 

Captain Stojace Stoilov and right back Jose Guilherme De Toledo will miss this match due to injuries. Stoilov is expected to join the squad in the next few weeks and Toledo will be outside of the court for a few months. 

The newcomers from China, Beijing Sport University will play at the SEHA – Gazprom League for the first time ever and will try to bring their magic on the SEHA court. Their pre-season was also busy for Beijing Sport University as they competed at various different tournaments. 

The match will be streamed on MTR (in North Macedonia), Arena Sport (in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Croatia), Sport TV (in Slovenia), Arena Sport (in Slovakia) and ehfTV. 

David Pisonero, Vardar coach:
We are happy that important matches will start tomorrow. We will play against Beijing Sport University and it is a good start for us, after our unnoficial matches and IHF Super Globe in Saudi Arabia. That was important part of our preparations and now we need to play quality matches. We are happy that we will start to play here in Skopje and we will see tomorrow how will our team do after returning from Super Globe.

Daniil Shishkarev, Vardar player:
We are ready for the new season and we are looking forward to the start of the SEHA League. We had a lot of preparations, training and IHF Super Globe from which we returned yesterday. We didn’t have the chance to meet our opponents yet, but I think it's good for the handball and the SEHA League to look at other continents, especially China, and get more attention and meaning. For us these matches are very important and will be good a preparation for the EHF Champions League.

Vlado Sola, Beijing Sport University coach:
It's a great pleasure for me to, for the first time, coach a team that will compete in the SEHA League. Also, it's an honor for the team to play in this League and open the season against one of the greatest European teams and the reigning European champions, Vardar. We are aware that we cannot expect a positive outcome against Vardar, as we are talking about a big difference when it comes to the quality of handball between these two teams. What I expect from my players is to give their best and show everything we have been working on for the past month through the preparations. I don't want them to worry about the result, but focus on the challenges that we agreed to put in front of our Tuesday's opponent. So I hope the players simply keep the focus throughout the match and complete what we envisioned for the match.

Wang Quan, Beijing Sport University player:
We are delighted to be here to train and participate in the SEHA League, which will help us to learn a lot about handball and different tactics. We arrived in Europe about a month ago so we could adapt and prepare for the upcoming season. Vardar are a very strong team. It is our great honor to play against a high-level team! We are looking forward to this game.