Thanks to a former Danish international goalkeeper, Niklas Landin, in superb form, Aalborg Handball recorded their second win in the Champions League on Wednesday evening against Sporting CP, who reached the quarter-final of the tournament last season. The result was 35-30 in Aalborg's favor.
Aalborg had a bright start to the game as Niklas Landin already made six saves after just 12 minutes.
Great defending and Landin's miracles between the posts gave Aalborg favorable conditions for goals on the counter, and that contributed to the fact that the home team already led by four goals after a quarter of an hour.
Thomas Arnoldsen was also prominent with goals and assists, and Mads Hoxer really stamped his mark on the game with a shot from distance to extend the lead to 15-10, the first lead of five goals, which prompted Sporting's coach to take a timeout.
Sporting did manage to reduce the deficit from 10-16 to 12-16, but Aalborg had the best finish to the half scording two goals in the last minute, as the Danes heades for the interval with a lead of 18-12.
The only bad news for the home side was that both Arnoldsen and Hoxer suffered knocks that kept them out of the second half.
That forced Aalborg to give some of their lesser names a chance to shine and they coped well. The home side still continued to pull away, and built a seven-goal gap at 23-16 thanks to prolific goalscorer Buster Juul, who became the game's top scorer with nine goals.
With ten minutes remaining, Aalborg led 29-22, and having seemingly already secured the win, the Danes allowed Sporting to score three successive goals to make it 25-29.
With three minutes left, Sporting also managed to cut the deficit to just three goals (30-33) while Aalborg had two players sent off.
However, the small hint of excitement was removed by Marinus Munk, who thundered the ball into the corner to make it 34-30 with exactly two minutes left.
