Čupić before the Champions League return: "Not everyone can play for Vardar"

The man who scored the most important goal in Vardar's history now sits on the club's bench. In his first season as coach, Ivan Čupić brought the Super League back to Skopje for the first time since 2022, and with it a place in the EHF Champions League after four seasons away. The Croatian does not hide behind managerial phrases: "I consider Vardar, Skopje and Macedonia my second home." For the players he has a message you rarely hear at a press conference - that a club's culture is not learned from video. "Not everyone can play for Vardar and not everyone can be Vardar's coach. Some of the new players watched Vardar on television and still are not aware of what it means. When they walk into a packed Jane Sandanski hall, they will understand."

Group B, Nantes in Skopje on 16 September - and an old acquaintance on the opposite bench

Vardar are in Group B, alongside MT Melsungen, Nantes and Wisła Płock, and open the season in Germany. A detail that adds salt to that fixture: Melsungen are coached by Roberto García Parrondo, a former Vardar coach - and Vardar beat that same opponent twice last season in the EHF European League main round. The first home match in the elite since 2022 is set for 16 September against Nantes. Čupić says openly that the target is the top two places in the group and that the team is young, ambitious and without experience in this competition. Skopje has waited four years for this match. The Jane Sandanski hall will probably be too small.

Pelister started with 35:31 against Partizan, Kuzmanovski scored 15 goals

Macedonian runners-up Eurofarm Pelister opened the Regional League with a 35:31 win over Serbian champions Partizan, in new coach Lino Červar's debut on the bench. The Bitola side went into the break 20:13 up, and the biggest gap in the second half reached eight goals (23:15, 24:16, 25:17), after which the tempo dropped and Partizan narrowed the deficit. Captain Filip Kuzmanovski scored 15 goals, Grahovac and Henigman four each, and for the visitors Wagner was the most efficient with ten. The Boro Čurlevski hall was packed - in August, when half of Macedonia is at the seaside. Over the next seven days Pelister host Lovćen at home, then Dubočica.

Abutović returned to Partizan after 16 years - with the coach he won it with at Vardar

Partizan are back in the Champions League after 14 years, and in the squad is Ilija Abutović - the left wing returning to Belgrade after 16 years away. The Skopje connection is direct: Abutović won the Champions League with Vardar in 2017, under Raúl González - the same Spanish coach now in charge of Partizan. "For me he is the best handball coach, no question," says the 38-year-old, who plays in Group A with Veszprém, Füchse Berlin and Porto. Serbia had not had a club in the elite since Vojvodina in 2015/16. Now it does - and the man bringing it the experience picked that experience up in Skopje.

Kumanovo's women's club excluded from the Super League over finances

The Handball Federation of Macedonia announced that ŽRK Kumanovo will not be part of the women's Super League in the 2026/27 season, under article 23 of the competition rules. RK Despina takes its place, after ŽRK Ovče Pole SU decided to continue in the First League. Kumanovo won both league and cup titles in the past - and then spent years fighting financial problems that have now finally pushed it out of the elite. One press release erases decades of history in three sentences. The question nobody is asking: what lies behind the decision that made a former champion disappear this year, and who answers for it at all?