One of the surprise teams of the season, Alba Fehérvár visited Népliget on Friday evening as our women’s handball team continued its domestic championship campaign at home. Despite the Easter weekend, a solid crowd turned up, but our side made a slow start.

For the opening ten minutes, the teams traded goals, with the visitors always just ahead, and it was clear we had yet to find our rhythm. Jesper Jensen held off on calling a timeout, but by the 18th minute he had no choice. While our attacking play was relatively solid, defensively we struggled to find the right spacing. Fehérvár grew in confidence, and even luck seemed to favour the visitors.

We fell three goals behind, and Orlane Kanor — returning after a head injury and a lengthy absence — was also handed a two-minute suspension. However, the timeout proved effective, and the momentum quickly shifted.

Angela Malestein played a key role in the turnaround. Despite facing extremely physical defending — at times on the edge of what should be allowed — and repeatedly signalling to the referees about dangerous contact before take-off, she was the one warned instead. Nevertheless, she scored seven goals in the first half and was instrumental in turning a three-goal deficit into a seven-goal lead in just under thirteen minutes (19–13).

We started the second half with a six-goal advantage, but much like the opening period, our defence was not at its best. As a result, the gap did not grow, and with Fehérvár switching to seven-on-six, they managed to close it to five (29–24).

Alba showed exactly why they had only lost to Champions League sides earlier in the season. Still, apart from the opening quarter, we kept the game under control even without hitting top form. Concentration was required throughout, but when the visitors cut the deficit to four late on, we responded immediately with two quick goals to restore a six-goal cushion.

As Mette Tranborg noted before the match, Alba Fehérvár are particularly good at making life difficult even for stronger opponents — and that proved to be the case. It turned into a tough, hard-working game, but we closed out Round 20 of the K&H League with a 35–29 victory.

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