Veszprem is the Winner of the Darko Pupovac Tournament

On the last day of the Darko Pupovac memorial tournament, ranking matches were played. Dobova narrowly beat Fivers and won fifth place, NEKA was better than Poreč and won third place, and in the final Veszprem beat NEXE and won the tournament.

Fivers – Dobova (for fifth place) 31:32 (16:14)

In the match for fifth place, we watched an even and tense game in which no team had an advantage of more than three goals. The Fivers took the lead with a goal by Vincent Schweiger, and Ignjat Nešić equalized, who scored four goals for Dobova in the first five minutes, each time to equalize. It was goal for goal until the 23rd minute, when Fivers took a three-goal advantage (14:11) with goals from Philipp Gangel and Lender Brenneis, and at the break the score was 16:14. The neighbors from Slovenia opened the second half better and in the 38th minute they had a three-goal advantage (18:21). With two tied goals, the Fivers came close to the goal behind, but the players of Dobova did not allow the Austrian Fivers to equalize, and in the continuation of the match, Dobova won with a score of 31:32.

Fivers were led by Eric Dambock with six and Jakob Nigg with five goals. In the Dobova team, Ignjat Nešić was fantastic with 12 goals, while Mirko Latković scored nine.

NEKA – Poreč (for third place) 31:24 (14:10)

In the match between NEKA and Poreč, we saw an even match until 15 minutes, but then the visitors from Hungary scored two consecutive goals by Benjamin Szilagy, who was joined by his club colleague Daniel Sztraka, to make it 10:7 and until the end of the first half, they did not allow the people of Poreč to score and to get closer. With the sound of the siren, Bence Krakowszki scored in 14:10. NEKA opened the second half better and with a 3:0 series went to a big seven-goal advantage, and they kept that advantage until the end of the match and deservedly won the third place in the tournament.

In the ranks of NEKA, Bence Krakowszki scored six goals, and Peter Gabor Temesvari and Benjamin Szilagy scored four each, while Luka Malinarich with six, Marko Bajan with five and Matija Car with four scored for Poreč.

Nexe – Telekom Veszprem (final) 32:38 (20:22)

In the final match, as a treat of the tournament, Nexe and Veszprem met. Both teams play in European competitions, the Veszprem Champions League and the Nexe Europa League. Although both of them were missing players who are currently with their national teams at the World Championship, in Veli Jože top handball game was played.

The first half was completely equal, but before the end, the advantage still went to the side of Veszprem and they went to the break with the score 20:22. The second half started like the first, goal for goal, but from the 40th to the 45th minute, Andreas Nilssoni, Gašper Marguc and Manuel Štrlek made a series of 5:0 and took their club to a seven-goal advantage and maintained that advantage until the end of the match, in order to finish with a score of 32:38.

Janko Kević and Gianfranco Pribetić from Poreč scored five goals each at Nexe from Nashik, Luka Moslavac added four. Veszprem was led by Andreas Nilsson with 10 goals, Gašper Marguc scored eight, and Petar Nenadić and Peter Lukacs scored six goals each.

Marijan Ritoša, executive director of RK Poreč, presented the cup for the second place in the tournament to Nexe, the award for the best player was given to the young Peter Lukacs, and the cup for the winner of the Darko Pupovac memorial tournament was presented by Ilija Pupovac, the father of the tragically deceased talented handball player from Poreč.