The group phase of this season of the EHF Champions League Women has concluded this weekend, with four teams progressing to the quarter-finals and eight teams entering the play-offs.

The top two sides in each of the two groups - Györi Audi ETO KC and Metz Handball in Group A, plus Brest Bretagne Handball and CSM București in Group B – have secured safe passage to the quarter-finals, with the biggest battle being registered in Group B.

It went down to the wire, with the top four sides being separated by only three points, but eventually Brest and CSM pulled through, with the Romanian side looking like the in-form team of the competition, which secured eight wins on the trot to finish the group in the second place – their largest-ever winning streak in the competition.

Boosted by the appointment of coach Bojana Popovic in late December, CSM went from a lowly fifth position to the second by sweeping their opponents and delivering three key wins in the dying stages of the group phase – 40:34 against group winners Brest Bretagne Handball, 35:30 against third-placed side FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria and 33:24 against Ikast Handbold in the last matchday.

With 20 points, CSM finished with the same number of points as FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria, but held the tiebreaker with the Hungarian side, due to winning both matches against their opponents. Brest finished on top of the group, with 22 points, while Odense Handbold ended up fourth, with two losses in the last four matches, dropping down to the fourth place.

In Group A, Györi Audi ETO KC dominated despite their injury woes, losing two of the last five matches, as they needed to bring in Danish line player Ida Dahl, due to unavailability of their three line players – Kari Dale, Linn Blohm and Anna Lagerquist.

However, Györ delivered a fantastic start of the group phase and managed to clinch the first place, being tied on points with Metz Handball – 24, with 12 wins in 14 matches – but holding the tiebreaker against the French champions, with two wins in two matches against their opponents.

Team Esbjerg also navigated through a plethora of injuries, but still finished third, shaking off a slow start to create an eight-match unbeaten run, until their last round match against Metz, conceding a 26:40 loss.

Esbjerg’s back, Henny Reistad, the recently-crowned IHF Female World Player of the Year for the third time in a row, was the top scorer of the group phase of the EHF Champions League Women, with 94 goals, one more than Brest’s right back Anna Vyakhireva and four over Ikast’s rising star Julie Mathiesen Scaglione. CSM’s Elizabeth Omoregie scored 84 goals, while the All-Star line player of the 2025 IHF Women’s World Championship, Sarah Bouktit, had 80 goals, being the fifth best scorer.

The teams ranked third through sixth in both groups progressed to the play-offs of the competition, while the teams ranked seventh and eighth – Storhamar Handball Elite and OTP Group Buducnost in Group A and Krim OTP Group Mercator and Sola HK in Group B – were eliminated.

In the play-offs the teams ranked third in each group will take on the teams ranked sixth in the other group, with Team Esbjerg facing HC Podravka and FTC Rail-Cargo Hungaria meeting BV Borussia Dortmund. The other play-offs ties will see Ikast Handbold face Gloria Bistrița and DVSC Schaeffler meet Odense Handbold.

The play-offs will be played in a doubleheader, with the first matches scheduled for 21 and 22 March with the second matches one week later.

EHF Champions League Women – play-offs

M1: HC Podravka (CRO) vs Team Esbjerg (DEN)
M2: BV Borussia Dortmund (GER) vs FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria (HUN)
M3: Ikast Handbold (DEN) vs Gloria Bistrița (ROU)
M4: DVSC Schaeffler (HUN) vs Odense Handbold (DEN)

EHF Champions League Women – quarter-finals

Winner M1 vs CSM București (ROU)
Winner M2 vs Metz Handball (FRA)
Winner M3 vs Brest Bretagne Handball (FRA)
Winner M4 vs Györi Audi ETO KC (HUN)

Credit photo: kolektiff / Anze Malovrh