A week after a narrow victory in Porto (31-34), the handball players of Paris Saint-Germain again played to scare each other, this Thursday evening, still against the Portuguese. But in the end, the Parisians won (29-28), overtaking their opponents of the day.
Because with this success, the PSG continues its rise in the classification of its group of C1 with six points in six matches played (three victories, three defeats), and now occupies 4th place. Raul Gonzalez’s players are one point behind the Belarusians in Brest (7 pts), and two less than the Germans in Flensburg (9), while the Poles in Kielce have a little more margin, with 13 points, but two more matches on the clock.
A series of five matches in ten days has started for the Parisians
Last week in Portugal, Luka Karabatic’s teammates had completely missed their first period by multiplying the loss of balls and had remained in contact with Porto thanks to the saves of Vincent Gérard. This Thursday, Gérard once again multiplied the parries (9 out of 20 shots in the first period, 12 stops in total), but unlike last week, the Parisian attack was much better. This is evidenced by the match of Latvian Dainis Kristopans, author of his best performance since joining PSG, with four assists and three goals.
The only downside was the management of the end of the game: the Parisians scored only two small goals in the last eleven minutes, and the Portuguese took the opportunity to get back to one goal. But the experience of Mikkel Hansen (nine goals) on the line at 7 meters, and the coolness of Nedim Remili at the end of a possession in the last minute allowed PSG to maintain the advantage in the end.
The Parisians started a marathon of five matches in ten days against Porto. On Sunday, they will play a league match in Créteil, then two Champions League matches at home against Skopje on Tuesday (late match), and Kielce on Thursday, before finishing in the Starligue against Istres, still in Coubertin on December 8. This sequence in the Champions League should allow them to get closer to the first two places, directly qualifying for the quarter-finals of the competition in the spring.
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