Vardar Return to the Champions League After Four Years, and the Ohrid Derby Ended With a Goal in the Last Second

Vardar put the Nantes tickets on sale: the first European night at Jane Sandanski after a four-year break

RK Vardar have put tickets on sale for the home tie with France's Nantes - the club's first home match this season in the EHF Champions League. The match is set for 16 September at 6.45pm at the Jane Sandanski hall in Skopje, with sales taking place exclusively online. The price for blocks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, as well as for block G, is 500 denars. The club's message is direct: fill the hall for the return to the strongest club competition. The red and blacks were once European champions, then it all fell apart in a matter of months. Now they are back, and the question is whether the crowd came back with them.

A derby without a winner in Ohrid: Atanasijevic levelled in the last second for 28:28

The Macedonian men's Super League opened with a match decided literally at the death. At the Biljanini Izvori sports centre, GRK Ohrid and Eurofarm Pelister drew 28:28. After the first half the Bitola side led 14:13, and at one point were two goals up. In the second half Boris Rojevic's team held a minimal lead, but in the closing stages Lino Cervar's side got a point through Petar Atanasijevic in the final seconds. Ohrid's top scorer was Dominik Mate with 11 goals, while Kuzmanovski scored 10 for Pelister. Elsewhere in the round: Alkaloid - Multi Esens 38:28, Prilep - Kumanovo 38:31, Butel Skopje - Mladost 30:30, Struga - Tikves 27:28, Vardar 1961 - Eurofarm Pelister 2 31:19. Two draws out of six matches on the opening day. The league is not settled even on paper.

Martin Tomovski shone in goal again, but Bietigheim lost by seven to Lemgo

Macedonia's international goalkeeper Martin Tomovski was among the best on the court in the German Bundesliga, but his Bietigheim lost at home to Lemgo 29:36. That is a seven-goal margin in a match where the goalkeeper was among his team's most important players - a combination familiar to anyone who has played that position. The saves are remembered by the statistics, the defeat is remembered by the table. Tomovski is part of a generation of Macedonian goalkeepers who keep the national team in matches where we are weaker on paper. The problem has never been who stands on our line. The problem is that six more people are needed in front of it.

The women's Champions League opened with four away wins - and not a single home side held on

The first round of the 2026/27 women's Champions League began with something unusual: in all four Saturday matches the visitors won. Defending champions Metz opened their title defence with a 32:23 win at Storhamar, with goalkeeper Sabrina Novotna making 15 saves. Finalists Gyor beat Croatia's Podravka 26:23 in the Match of the Week - Tjasa Stanko scored eight goals, five of them from seven metres, against the club where she played in 2019/20. CSM Bucharest won 37:29 at Slovenia's Krim, who now have ten matches without a win in this competition. Esbjerg took Dortmund apart 33:24, with Henny Reistad scoring ten goals from ten attempts. Home advantage in women's handball evidently means less and less.

The EHF is touting record numbers, and the men's Champions League goes from 16 to 24 teams

Before the start of the new season, the EHF published a 2025/26 accounting that reads like an advertising catalogue, but with figures that mean something: a cumulative TV audience of over 540 million for the Champions League and the European League, more than 40 broadcasters across over 80 territories, 50 percent growth on its own platform and a digital reach of 1.6 billion. Attendance in the halls was 1.2 million, and both Final Four tournaments set records - 20,022 spectators a day in Budapest and 20,122 in Cologne, where 14,000 tickets for 2027 sold out in 24 hours. The most important thing, though, is structural: from this season the men's Champions League expands from 16 to 24 teams. More places means more chances for clubs from our region. And more matches in which the gap between the budgets will be visible from the first minute.