The handball players from Brest qualified for the first time for a Champions League final by beating the Hungarians from Gyor, triple title holders, after a penalty shootout (4-2, 23- 23 after extra time), Saturday May 29 in Budapest.
Brest, the first French women’s club in the C1 final, will face either the Russians from CSKA Moscow or the Norwegians from Kristiansand in the final on Sunday.
By eliminating the big favorite, Gyor, who sees his streak of 55 undefeated C1 games come to an end, Brest Bretagne Handball can dream of becoming the first French women’s club to lift the most coveted trophy, and thus join Montpellier, the only club in France, European champion for men (in 2003 and 2018).
In an extremely closed match, the Brestoises went through all the emotions: they first created the first significant gap in the game, led by four goals in the first period (9-5) before putting the cover back at the start of the second period (15-11, 39e), then they experienced a huge air gap of almost a quarter of an hour, during which Gyor passed again in front.
“Maybe we wanted to keep this lead and this result a little too much. I think we made mistakes for that reason ”, estimated the Serbian pivot of Brest Sladjana Pop-Lazic.
Gyor, supported by more than 2,500 spectators, thought he had won the game on a realization by Stine Bredal Oftedal, (20-18, 58e), but it was without counting on the relentlessness of the Brestoises.
Djurdjina Jaukovic snatched the equalizer (20-20) at the last second. Still tied after the two five-minute overtime periods, it was during a penalty shoot-out that the match was played out. And goalkeeper Cléopatre Darleux, impressive with twelve saves during the seventy minutes of the game, was once again decisive, stopping the shot of Estelle Nze Minko, one of Gyor’s four French internationals.
“It’s something prepared. This morning, I told myself that it could very well be played on penalties. I imagined who could shoot. From the moment I decide who p[eu]t shoot, you have to convince the players “, slipped the coach of Brest, Laurent Bezeau, after the meeting. “Penalties are really nerves. We had a lot of success [après un échec de la Slovène du BBH, Ana Gros, en début de séance], because Gyor immediately missed [après]. “
And it was finally Isabelle Gulldén who scored the winning goal. The loud celebration of the Brest players covered the silence of the Papp-Laszlo Sportaréna in Budapest, which did not expect such an outcome.
After winning the Coupe de France two weeks ago against Nantes, then the French championship against Metz six days ago, here are the Brestoises able to achieve a historic treble, and leave their mark in the history of hand French.