Ohrid and Alkaloid await the draw as trophy holders

This is a sentence we rarely write: 64 clubs enter the second round of the EHF European Cup, and the biggest name among them is Macedonian. HC Ohrid is the reigning champion of the competition, and HC Alkaloid won the trophy in 2025. Of the five winners so far, two are from Macedonia - the other three are Vojvodina (2023), Nærbø (2022) and AEK (2021). Nineteen teams earned their place through the first round, while 45 were seeded directly. The draw takes place today, 22 September at 11:00, with federation protection - which means Ohrid and Alkaloid cannot be drawn against each other. The first legs are on 17 and 18 October, the return legs on the 24th and 25th. Macedonian handball rarely enters anything as the favourite. This time it does.

Tikveš went out at home, won the second leg and it did not help

The cruellest way to end a European run: win the second match and go out anyway. HC Tikveš 2014 played both matches at home, in the Jasmin hall in Kavadarci, and still let a place in the second round of the EHF European Cup slip away. In the first leg on Saturday, Esch of Luxembourg won 30:27 after a level first half (14:14). On Sunday Tikveš won 33:32, but the aggregate was 61:59 to the Luxembourgers. Tikveš led 3:1 early on, then conceded a run - at one point it was 11:7 to the visitors, later 22:18. The top scorer in Kavadarci was the Tunisian Mahfoud Ben with nine goals, with Lazov adding eight. A two-goal margin across two matches is not a catastrophe - it is exactly what one bad twenty-minute spell costs. A club from Luxembourg, a country with fewer people than Skopje, goes through. That is the point worth thinking about.

Vardar scored 44, Ohrid 41 - and that was routine

The third round of the Super League passed without surprises, but with numbers heading towards a basketball court. Champions Vardar 1961 beat Mladost 44:34, with Faduil scoring 13 goals from 13 attempts - a hundred percent conversion across a whole match. HC Ohrid were better than Butel 41:32 in Skopje, where winger Ǵukić scored 11 times and goalkeeper Slavić made 10 saves. Eurofarm Pelister saw off Struga 33:25, while Alkaloid overran Kumanovo 37:21. Four matches, four convincing wins by the same four teams that share the medals every season. A goal fest is fun to watch, but when the result is known by Thursday and Sunday, the difference between a match and a training session gets thin. It is the clubs' European results that show where we really are.

Barcelona barely survived in Montpellier, Magdeburg unstoppable

In the Champions League two teams kept a perfect record. Barcelona laboured in Montpellier and won 28:27, with goalkeeper Sergey Hernández the decisive factor down the stretch. Magdeburg had a far easier evening - 39:29 in Lucerne, at Kriens-Luzern's first home match in the competition. Orlen Wisła Płock won a thriller against Melsungen 25:24, with a Sergey Kosorotov goal 20 seconds from the end. For the region the most painful evening was in Porto: the Portuguese club beat Partizan 32:28, for the first time in the history of their meetings, after two defeats in qualifying. Antonio Martinez scored eight. Partizan are pointless after two rounds. Denmark's SH Aarhus, meanwhile, took the first point in the club's history with a 25:25 draw against Dinamo Bucharest - there are wins that are not wins.

Reistad scored 13 goals and signed a historic one for Esbjerg

In the women's Champions League the third round brought a comeback to remember. Dortmund erased a nine-goal deficit to beat CSM Bucharest 35:32, taking their first points and ending a run of seven matches without a win in the competition. The Romanians dropped their first points of the season. Henny Reistad was the day's top scorer with 13 goals in Esbjerg's 37:31 win over Krim, and in the 43rd minute she scored Esbjerg's 4,000th goal in the Champions League. FTC won 28:25 at Sola with 11 saves from Anna Kristensen, and title holders Metz beat Podravka 35:24 to extend their run to 12 matches unbeaten. Through all of it, Krim is the only team from the region on court - and again came away with nothing.