Yes, you read that right, a village of 900 inhabitants shocked the whole of Europe and made it to the quarter finals of the Champions League where they will play the current European champions Barcelona.
Sensation! The village of exactly 907 inhabitants will have a representative in the quarterfinals of the Champions League! The place is called Gudme, and the club is GOG, the Champions League is the one in handball. After we saw the spectacular placement of Vistula in the quarterfinals after the penalty shootout, and then the great but insignificant victory of Dinamo Bucharest over Kiel, GOG managed to return the minus from the first match on their field and advance to the quarterfinals.
In the Danish derby, Aalborg managed to win 30:28 in the first match thanks to the great play of Munk, Barthod and Bjornsen, but now in the rematch played in the full Fenix Tag Arena in Gudme, it was 32:24 and that’s how the club with the name Gudjerg Oure Gudme passed to the quarterfinals where they will meet the great Barcelona.
GOG was a much better rival throughout the match, they took a 5:1 lead at the start and held that advantage almost until the end of the match. Aalborg tried to make up for the deficit with seven-on-six attacks, playing without a goalkeeper, but they were very slow to transform into defense, and this resulted in the GOG team in transition giving a huge number of goals to the empty goal of their rival, with whom these already played six matches this season. They won this most important one and made history, while playing in a packed hall with 2,500 seats – which is three times the population of Gudme. See how this passage was celebrated:
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A PLACE OF 900 PEOPLE ONE STEP AWAY FROM THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE TROPHY: The whole village is going crazy, now they are going straight to the European champions
Gudme became the smallest place with a team in the quarterfinals of the handball Champions League. Before this small town, six small towns with less than 50,000 inhabitants were among the eight best in Europe – Lemgo (41,000), Celje (38,000), Koper (25,000), Metković (17,000), Cetinje (14,000) and Skjern (8,000). Until this sensation, left back Simon Pitlik led the team with eight goals, while striker Lukas Jorgensen had fewer goals.
In the last match of the round of 16 in the Hungarian derby, Vesprem beat Pik Szeged 38:33, and the team played for by Serbian national team members Vladimir Cupara and Dragan Pešmalbek won easily, as they overcame their biggest rival with 36:23 in the first match.
Kjelce and Vesprem, Magdenburg and Vistula, Barcelona and GOG, as well as PSG and Kiel will meet in the quarterfinals of the Champions League in what is probably the most interesting pair. All these teams will chase a place in the Final Four, which will be held in Cologne again this year, on June 17 and 18, 2023.
Of course, probably all neutral handball fans are hoping that GOG could continue its campaign and go all the way. The club, founded in 1973 by the merger of three smaller clubs, has in history eight Danish championship titles, 11 Danish cups, as well as the final of the EHF Cup in 1995. We also watched them in Serbia, since in their history in Europe they played with Partizan and Železničar from Niš.