This season's EHF Champions League began superbly for SEHA's representatives in it. Despite of the strong clubs they played against in the first round of the Group stage, CO Zagreb and Metalurg managed to enroll two points each and Vardar took one point from the match against super strong Barcelona.

 

Zagreb won the opening match at home in 'Arena' Zagreb in front of more than 7,000 spectators against their old rivals, Slovenian Celje Pivovarna Laško. Zagreb was leading almost through the whole game. At some points of the match the goal gap even used to be +5 for Zagreb so in the end it was well-deserved win for them (24:21). Stipe Mandalinić scored 7 for Zagreb, Gašper Marguč 5 for Celje.

 

Metalurg opened the EHF CL season in Thun, Switzerland against Wacker and won narrowly 22:23. Wacker has almost reached the equaliser because when the result was 18:23 it seemed like Metalurg has stopped playing. But in the end brilliant 17 Stanić's saves prevented Metalurg from dropping points in Switzerland. Speaking of best scorers, Jonas Dähler scored 5 for hosts, Naumče Mojsovski 7 for guests.

 

Probably the greatest surprise one SEHA's club has made in the first round was Vardar not losing from the Spanish giant Barcelona. In the end of the match, after Karabatić had levelled the match at 29:29 (the final result), Macedonians even had match winning ball in their hands but outstanding Šterbik didn't allow Vardar to grab both points. In the end Timur Dibirov scored 8 for Vardar and Siarhei Rutenka also 8 for Barcelona.

In the next round Zagreb will on Thursday play in Ukraine against Motor from Zaporozhye which took one point to Rhein Neckar Löwen in the first round, Metalurg will on Saturday host reinforced PSG (won the first round against Dinamo Minsk) and Vardar will on Wednesday play Belarus Dinamo Minsk.