After losing 27:23 in their premier match of the season against Tatran Presov less than a month ago in Slovakia, the "Red&Blacks" didn't have to wait too long for an opportunity to take the win by hosting Slovak champions in Skopje on Friday night.
In what was a completely different match than the one in Presov, Vardar 1961 in the end managed to secure a five-goal win (29:24) which Goce Georgievski stated was their main goal going into this one.

Things did not look ideal for the Macedonians in the opening minutes of the game with the guests being able to stay close. However, later in the first, Vardar managed to tighten up the defence, slowly widening the gap from 7:6 to 15:10 in the final ten minutes of the first. "Red&Blacks" started the second half well too, additionally widening the gap to 17:10 and sealing the deal when it comes to the winner of today's encounter. Until the end of the match however, their goal remained to keep the gap open to secure the much-desired five-goal win which is exactly what they did, that way overtaking the top spot in group B.

Jan Czuwara led them offensively in this one with five goals while Cuni Morales, Goce Georgievski and Martin Karapalevski as well as Leonardo Dutra Ferreira added four each. Martin Tomovski finished the match with 12 saves. Oliver Rabek, on the other side, netted 10 while Lukas Urban and Damian Miral added four each for Tatran.

In their next SEHA – Gazprom League appearances, Vardar 1961 will travel to meet Partizan in Belgrade on February 28th, and Tatran will welcome the same team later next month.

Marek Gernat, Tatran Presov coach:
Tough match for us in an incredible atmosphere here in Skopje. We’ve scored only ten goals in the first half, I have no idea what happened. We missed our goalkeeper Chupryna who was forced to remain sidelined with flu-like symptoms. I feel like those are the two main reasons for our loss today.

Viacheslav Kasatkin, Tatran Presov player:
An incredible atmosphere here tonight. We thought we were ready for this one, we were aware it was going to be much harder than in the first game but obviously, we were not ready and that was well-visible in the first half. Later on, I feel like Vardar wanted to win more than we did and that approach is something we’ll have to work on moving forward.

Vlado Nedanovski, Vardar 1961 coach:
Really good performance from us in an amazing atmosphere. Today the situation was completely different because we could count on some of our important players. We’ve had some time to prepare for this game and that was visible despite the fact we were making mistakes. We were focused on the attack and they didn’t have goalkeeping support like in the first game. Once all of our players come back, I believe we have the potential to be even better.

Marko Mishevski, Vardar 1961 player:
I feel like we looked good in defence, backed up by our goalie Tomovski and this amazing crowd. Another win will help our confidence grow additionally and I expect us to keep on getting better.

Photo credit: kolektiffimages