Cupic before the Champions League: "The Vardar shirt is not for everyone"

Ivan Cupic, the man who scored one of the most famous goals in Vardar's history, now runs the team from the bench - and in his first season he brought the Macedonian Super League title back after a gap since 2022, which also means a return to the Champions League after four seasons away. The Croatian says he considers Vardar, Skopje and Macedonia his second home and that a club's culture is something passed on, not bought. "Not everyone can play for Vardar and not everyone can be Vardar's coach," he says of players who only ever watched the club on television - until they walk into a full Jane Sandanski arena. Last season Vardar were a few goals from the Final Four in the EHF European League, but Montpellier's lead from the first leg proved decisive. Now they are in Group B with MT Melsungen, Nantes and Wisla Plock, and they start in Germany, against the side of former Vardar coach Roberto Garcia Parrondo. Cupic is openly aiming at the top two places.

The EHF upheld Croatia's penalty, then added a fine for the player

The EHF Court of Appeal upheld the 10,000 euro penalty against the Croatian Handball Federation, of which 2,500 is suspended for a period of two years. The cause: at the medal ceremony of the 2026 Men's European Championship, player Matej Mandic unfurled a flag that is not in the EHF protocol and is not permitted under the rules for the ceremony. The court rejected the Croatian federation's appeal and partly upheld the EHF's own appeal - and wrote Mandic an additional personal fine of 2,500 euros. The deadline for a further appeal to the European Handball Court of Arbitration is 21 days. The Balkans knows these scenes by heart: the flag lasts ten seconds, the proceedings last months, and in the end both the federation and the player pay the bill.

Partizan return to the elite after 14 years - with a 38-year-old veteran

RK Partizan return to the Champions League for the first time since the 2012/13 season, and Serbia last had a club at that level with Vojvodina in 2015/16. The team has been completely rebuilt: Spanish coach Raul Gonzalez on the bench and nine new players. Among them is Ilija Abutovic, a left back and defensive specialist returning to Belgrade at 38 after 16 years - and who won the Champions League title with Gonzalez himself, at Vardar, in 2017. Group A shows no mercy: Veszprem, Fuchse Berlin and Porto. Abutovic says Serbia deserves at least one representative at this level and that the team should not put pressure on itself. That is a fair calculation - a side with nine new faces and a new system is rarely finished by September.

Pelister scored 45, Ohrid celebrated in Budva, Alkaloid fell in the second half

The three Macedonian sides had three different evenings in the regional league. Eurofarm Pelister tore apart Lovcen 45:33 in front of a home crowd in the Boro Curlevski hall, after a half that ended 24:15. Captain Filip Kuzmanovski scored 14 goals, Hennigman 10, Atanasijevic 7, while Mitrevski stood out with his saves. The visitors led 0:1 and that was their only lead in the entire match. GRK Ohrid won in Budva against Budvanska Rivijera by a narrow 22:20, with Liapis top scorer on 5 goals. Alkaloid opened their campaign with a defeat - 31:39 to Partizan in Avtokomanda, without their foreign signing Suholeznik. Kosteski scored 6 for Lazarov's side, and Damjanovic 10 for Raul Gonzalez's visitors. Lino Cervar's team clearly has depth. The other two are looking for it.

Lazarov asks for respect: "If I were not Macedonian, I would not have come back"

Alkaloid's coach and the Macedonian national team's head coach Kiril Lazarov spoke openly about why, after a glittering international career, he chose to come home - and about what he gets in return. "If I were not Macedonian, I would not have returned to Macedonia," he said in an interview for the Balkan Handball portal. He lists his record: 25 years as a player and already five or six years of coaching with youth categories and with seniors. He ended his playing career in 2022, but took the national team bench back in 2021, while he was still playing. The word he used for the state of domestic handball is "chaos", and he says he asks for respect precisely because he agreed to step into it. When a man with that biography has to publicly ask that his contribution not be disputed, it says more about the environment than about him.