Interesting facts about the team:
- Metz Handball has qualified to the EHF Final4 for the second time, after finishing fourth in 2019, when they lost against Rostov-Don and Vipers Kristiansand
- Metz did not play a quarter-final as their original opponent, Russian Rostov Don had to leave the competition because of the war in Ukraine when all Russian sports teams has been banned
- Metz played play-offs against Borussia Dortmund for getting to the quarter-finals, as the other team here, Győri Audi ETO KC, Vipers, and Team Esbjerg has finished in front of their groups and was directly qualified for the quarter-finals
- At the beginning of the season, Metz lost Ukrainian pivot, Olga Peredery who decided to finish her career because of injuries
- During the season their goalkeeper Hatadou Sako got injured, being sidelined for the rest of the season
- Grace Zaadi left Rostov Don in the middle of the season, right before the playoffs because of the war, and ended up in Metz (her former club) for the rest of the season, a great strength has been added to the team’s composition
- Metz has won the French championship lately against Brest, as well they won the French Cup
- Metz met Vipers twice this season and they manage to defeat the Norwegians in both games
- Arrivals during the season beside Zaadi, Adriana Cardoso de Castro (Bera Bera) on the rightwing and Tamara Horacek (Siófok)
- Several players in the team are newcomers to the EHF Final4: Burgaard, Bont, Micijevic, Valentini, Bouktit, de Paula, Cardoso, having accumulated less experience than their semifinal opponent Vipers
- Metz doesn’t have any players who won the CL trophy earlier
- Metz is the only team in the Final4 not have any Norwegian players on their squad
Key Players: Grace Zaadi, Ivana Kapitanovic, Louise Burgaard, Camilla Micijevic, Meline Nocandy
Grace Zaadi, Metz-middle back:
“In 2019, when we played the (EHF) FINAL4 with Metz, we’d beaten Rostov twice, and we lost to Rostov in the semi-final of the FINAL4. So we know that winning twice against an opponent means nothing, that each match has its own history and its own truth. Tomorrow we’re expecting a different match. For me, FINAL4 is a bit different. We know our opponents and our opponents know us well too, and we know that tomorrow will be a totally different match to the two others which we’ve already played.”
“We had the French championships. We’ve played a lot, we’ve played every week. We prepare for each match. To start with it was the championships, we had the championship final; once the championship final was finished, we put the focus on the (EHF) FINAL4.
“Even though we knew for a while that we’d be coming to the FINAL4, for us it was important to really respect every competition and to take things to step by step.”
RSS