Important win for the Barça handball team in Croatia with Carlos Ortega's team taking a 32-25 win against Zagreb on match day three of the EHF Machineseeker Champions League group stage. The win in the Arena Zagreb came in the blaugranes' first away trip of the competition and comes after the defeat in their last fixture against holders Magdeburg. Dika Mem returned from injury to lead the side along with Blaz Janc and Aleix Gómez in attack whilst keeper Emil Neilsen was named man of the match thanks to his 15 saves. 

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Carlos Ortega's team started solidly and the early exchanges were even in nature. Slowly but surely, Barça edged in front and Ludovic Fabregas' strike made it 9-5 and Emil Nielsen was in spectacular form, making nine saves from 21 shots in the first half. At the break the blaugranes went in with a 17-12 lead that they never looked like losing. 

In the second half the Croatians made a game of it coming to within three at 19-16. Goals from N'Guessen and Aleix Gómez rallied the blaugranes and soon they were back in control at 22-16. A run of five unanswered goals made it 29-19 and end the game as a contest. The 32-25 win was Barça's second of the group stage and now their focus turns to the Club World Cup in Egypt which starts on Saturday with a game against Handebol Taubaté at 4.45pm CEST. 

MATCH STATS

Zagreb, 25
FC Barcelona, 32

Zagreb: Grbavac (-), Klarica (0), Gojun (0), Cavar (3), Bialiauski (3), Glavas (5), Trivkovic (1) -starting seven- Faljic (0), Tskhovrebadze (2), Karacic (0), Topic (1), Gavric (0), Suljevic (0), Przytula (1), Kavcic (3) and Tufegdzic (0).

Barça: Nielsen (0), Aleix Gómez (6), Mem (6), Janc (6), N'Guessan (4), Frade (2), Barrufet (2) -starting seven- Hallgrímsson (0), Fabregas (2), Dani Fernández (3), Carlsbogard (0), Djordje Cikusa (1), Adrian Sola (0), Grau (0), Makuc () and Elderaa (0).

ic.

Força Barça