The SG Flensburg-Handewitt holds its nerve against the battered Recken and ultimately secures two important points in the battle for the upper places in the table. The sound bites:
Aleš Pajović, SG coach: "I'm satisfied and a little sad. We've been really unlucky with injuries this season. Today again. Simon came into the game and has problems again. Hopefully it's not that bad. But I'm very, very pleased with my boys' performance. We showed very good team spirit today. We fought and had the game under control. There were zero technical errors in the first half. In the second half, Hannover tried to play seven against six. We had a bit of difficulty there. But we always had an answer in attack against their 5-1 or 6-0 defense. We showed patience and played like a team. I'm delighted with this win. Especially for our fans, who I really want to praise. Because there were so many here away from home today. Thank you very much for that."
Johannes Golla, SG captain: "I think it was a deserved win. We put in a really decent attacking performance for fifty minutes. It was even close to perfection in the first half. We also saw what Simon Pytlick can do in the few minutes he played. That made the back line more complete again. We then had some problems in defense in the second half because we didn't run back in an orderly fashion. But things have been moving in the right direction since we focused on our defensive work after the international break. The program at the moment is brutal and sometimes it doesn't feel like we're second in the table but playing against relegation. Because in the European League it's all finals now and in the Bundesliga every game is important and they're close games. Even against the supposed relegation candidates, we have to fight for at least fifty minutes. But that's due to the strength of the Bundesliga. We are still very young as a team. It's a development process. The win today was very important."
Lasse Møller, SG backcourt player: "I'm really pleased with the mental performance we showed here over sixty minutes. We made a good leap in the first half in particular and led by five goals. In the second half, Hannover-Burgdorf tried to come back with many different defensive constellations. But we held out for a good sixty minutes. That's why I'm very satisfied."
Joel Birlehm, Recken goalkeeper: "We fell behind right at the start of the game. We did worse overall than in the second half. We played a good game there. But we can't buy anything for that. The mortgage in the first half with the clear deficit was simply too high.