Since 2013, final tournaments have also taken place in the second-tier EHF competition below the Champions League and for the fourth time after 2017, 2018 and 2021, three teams from the LIQUI MOLY HBL are in the semi-finals.  The fourth opponent are Romanian champions Dinamo Bucharest, who will face SG Flensburg-Handewitt in the first semi-final on Saturday (15:00 CEST, live on Dyn). Afterwards (18:00 CEST, live on Dyn) in the all-HBL duel Füchse and Löwen will fight for the second finalist.  

The series of German clubs in the list of winners in the EHF Cup/European League is almost endless: there have been 18 German winners since 2004, ten times in a row from 2004 to 2013, and a total of 22 German teams have been successful since 1994. Only Pick Szeged (2014) and Benfica Lisbon (2022) have broken into the German phalanx in the last 20 years. The record winners are SC Magdeburg, THW Kiel and Frisch Auf Göppingen with four titles each - Füchse Berlin, who won the EHF Cup and European League in 2015, 2018 and 2023, could also achieve this number on Sunday. 

After the Füchse qualified for the Champions League season 2024/25 last weekend with the win against Recken and the simultaneous Flensburg defeat in Eisenach, they now want to defend the trophy. The Rhein-Neckar Löwen have something against that - even if they have lost all games against Füchse for over seven years, including the European League semi-final at home in 2021.  

Lions show two faces this season, the sad one in the LIQUI MOLY HBL, in which they are currently in eleventh place, and the lucky one in the European League. Coach Sebastian Hinze's team was the first team ever to make it from the qualification (against Vardar Skopje) to the final tournament. It started with seven wins in a row, followed by two defeats at the end of the group phase (against Nantes) and at the start of the main round (in Zabrze/Poland), but then there were another six consecutive wins, including two against the warriors from Hannover-Burgdorf , the only German club to miss the quarter-finals.  

In the round of the last eight, goalkeeper David Späth secured a ticket to the third final tournament after 2013 (title in Nantes) and 2021 (third place in Mannheim) with a total of 31 saves in the first and second leg against Sporting Lisbon. “Anything can happen in one game,” hopes Niclas Kirkelökke, who is the best Lions’ scorer in both the European League and the LIQUI MOLY HBL.  

“Previous results do not matter in a tournament like this,” warns Füchse backcourt player Fabian Wiede, who, like Paul Drux, has been involved in all Füchse titles since 2014 (German Cup). The Foxes, who are playing their eighth final tournament in European competitions, were the only team to win all six group games this season. But then they suffered two defeats against Sporting Lisbon, missed a direct qualification for the quarter-finals, but confidently avoided the cliff Kadetten Schaffhausen in the round of 16. In the quarter-finals, the Füchse locked horns co-favorites Nantes, achieved a lucky 33:33 at home in the first leg, but won clearly in western France with 37:30.  

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As he says goodbye to the capital, Hans Lindberg, HBL's best scorer of all time, dreams of his fourth international title after winning the Champions League (2015 with Hamburg), the EHF Cup (2018) and the European League (2023, both with Berlin) . The semi-final duel between the U21 world champions Späth (Löwen) against the foxes Tim Freihöfer, Nils Lichtlein and Matthes Langhoff, who were all on court in last year's European League triumph in Flensburg, will also be exciting.  

The SG would have liked to play there as hosts - but they sensationally failed against Granollers in the quarter-finals and were only spectators. With a year's delay, SG are now embarking on a special mission, to take the victory in the fifth different EHF competition: in 1997 they won the EHF Cup, in 1999 the City Cup, in 2001 and 2012 the Cup Winners' Cup and, to crown it all, the Champions League in 2014 - Ten years after the historic success in the last all-German CL final against THW Kiel in Cologne, the HBL third in the table now wants to take home trophy number five.  

In purely mathematical terms, Flensburg are the most successful German team this European League season, being the only HBL team to top the group in the main round, skipping the round of 16 - and laid the foundation for reaching the EHF finals for the first time in the club's history with a 41:30 away win in the quarter-finals against Recken conqueror Sävehof from Sweden.  

And Flensburg have at least best memories of the coach of their semi-final opponent Dinamo Bucharest: Xavi Pascual was coach of FC Barcelona in 2014 when the Champions League record winners lost the historic semi-final in Cologne against SG after a penalty shoot-out. After 38 titles, including three Champions League victories, with FC Barcelona, ​​Pascual moved to Bucharest in 2021 - and took numerous Barca stars with him such as Luka Cindric, Ali Zein and Cedric Sorhaindo, who is now on loan.  

For Bucharest it is only the second European Cup semi-final after 2004, when they lost to Altea from Spain in the EHF Cup. And who won the title? THW Kiel, which started the German winning streak in the competition right then.  

European League final tournament in Hamburg  
Saturday, 25 May, semi-finals: 
15:00 CEST: SG Flensburg-Handewitt vs. Dinamo Bucharest  
18:00 CEST: Rhein-Neckar Löwen vs. Füchse Berlin  

Sunday, 26 May, final day:  
15:00 CEST: placement match 3-4  
18:00 CEST: final 
(all games live on Dyn)  

Photo: Anderson-Jensen