Vardar Return to the Champions League After Five Years - but Without Mitrovic for the First Four Matches

Vardar return to the Champions League after five years away

Tonight at 20:45 at the Rothenbach Halle in Kassel, RK Vardar 1961 play their first match in the EHF Champions League after a long break - the last time the red-and-blacks were here was in the play-offs of the 2020/21 season. The two-time European champions have climbed back into the elite after years spent in lower European competitions. The coach is Ivan Cupic, in his second season on the bench, who before that spent five years playing as a right wing - including in the season Vardar won the title in 2019. The captain is goalkeeper Vasil Gogov. Vardar return with the biggest advantage a club can have - the memory of having done this before.

Mitrovic suspended: Vardar without a back for the first four European matches

The return begins with a problem. Uros Mitrovic, one of the most important players in the back line, did not travel with the team to Germany - and the reason is not injury. The Serbian international is serving a suspension earned at the end of last European season: in the second leg of the European League quarter-final against Montpellier at the Jane Sandanski arena he received a direct red and blue card, after which the EHF added a four-match ban. Since Vardar's European campaign ended after that, the punishment carried over into the new season. Mitrovic will miss the away trips to Melsungen and Wisla Plock, as well as the home ties against Nantes and Wisla. Four European matches without a key back, for a card shown half a year ago - that is a tax arriving late and landing at exactly the worst moment.

Melsungen are favourites on paper, but Vardar have already beaten them twice

The Germans are the favourites and nobody in Skopje is pretending otherwise. Except the numbers tell a different story: in the four meetings so far Vardar lead 3-1, and just six months ago, in the main round of the 2025/26 European League, the Skopje side won both matches against the team that later won that competition. Cupic says they are travelling to Germany determined to show they are ready for this competition, but also that this tie is something entirely different from the European League. Gogov expects a hard match against a deep roster that can punish from nine metres and from six. On paper the hosts are stronger, but the meetings so far say Vardar know how to play against this team.

The Champions League is under way: Magdeburg and Barcelona showed no mercy, Nantes settled the drama in the last second

The opening night of the new season brought seven matches and one clear conclusion - home advantage still counts. Magdeburg demolished Kolstad 37-22, and Barcelona began the defence of their title 39-28 against Aarhus. Veszprem beat Porto 36-28, Zagreb beat Celje 31-29, and Kielce barely held off Kriens-Luzern 30-29. The most dramatic was in Nantes, where Noam Leopold converted a penalty in the final second for 26-25 against Wisla Plock. The only away side to take a point was PSG, who pulled out 33-33 in Aalborg thanks to a penalty from Ferran Sole on the buzzer - the Spaniard finished with 10 goals. The night's top scorer was Aljus Anzic of Celje with 11 goals.

The league expands to 24 teams, and the Balkans got three places in the elite

The EHF Champions League starts this season with 24 teams and a changed format, which in practice means more places for clubs that used to watch from outside. The Balkans again have their representatives - alongside Vardar there are Zagreb and Celje, who ran straight into each other. Expansion is always sold as democratisation, but it usually also means more matches, more travel and more television slots. For a club like Vardar, returning on a limited budget and already down a suspended back, a bigger league is an opportunity and a burden at once. The answer starts tonight in Kassel.