Guif victorious in first quarterfinal vs Hamburg on home turf.Today, Guif took on visiting HSV Hamburg in the first quarterfinal between the two. Despite the hype surrounding the previous Champions League winners, Guif took on their opponents without fear and with a ravenous hunger for victory. After a high intensity first half ending at 12-13, Guif switched gears and ended the game with a 29-26 victory.After an explosive start of the match, where Guif grabbed a quick 3-1 lead, the two teams took turns leading the charge. Many of the highlights of today's match took place in the defensive game. The steady ongoing rotation between Guifs goalkeepers is not exactly a secret anymore, but nevertheless it still seems like a recipe for success. Both Aron Rafn Evarsson and Herdeiro Lucau performed a number of impressive saves at important moments in the match. Some prime examples are the Penalty throw save from Lucau and the double save from Evarsson that had the crowd screaming their lungs out in excitement. Goalkeepers aside, the defensive game in general maintained a high level for both teams, even though a few missplays left substantial openings for the opposing attackers to waltz through and score.Offensively, neither team impressed quite as much as they did defensively. There were certainly moments you would want to watch replays of over and over, but there were also quite a few botched attempted attacks. Fumbling, missed opportunities and offensive fouls were all commonplace in large portions of the match. However, pretty much all of the players played their respective parts when it came to scoring. A whopping ten out of eleven active players scored once or more for Guif, of which three managed to outmaneuver the german goalkeepers, namely heavy hitter Viktor stlund, counterattack king Mathias Tholin and penalty throw specialist Daniel Petterson. Helge Freiman also deserves an honorable mention after getting Guifs scoring started with two out of their three early goals. One of the most impressive moments in the match happened with merely a few minutes left on the clock. With one man less due to a penalty, Guif sneakily removed goalkeeper Lucau and threw in Rickard kerman as an extra offensive player, who immediately charged forwards and found his way past Johannes Bitter, goalkeeper of Hamburg as well as the German national team. On Hamburgs side of things, the scoring was slightly more monotonous, as Kentin Mah was responsible for an impressive eight goals, doubtlessly pulling most of the weight for Hamburgs offense. Defensively, Davor Dominikovic had a massive presence, being more visible and audible than the rest of his team combined most of the time. The number of spectators was also a tad higher than that of Guifs previous EHF match. 1551 defied the warming spring sun and found their way into the sports hall, which could definitely be felt volume wise. The enthusiastic cheering was pretty much constant and the crowd also let their voices be heard during less impressive moments, like when one of the french referees managed to (miss)place himself in the path of an accelerating Mathias Tholin heading for another swift counterattack, leading to player and ref alike crashnig to the floor. After todays victory, Guif can look forward to a rematch in Hamburg on April 19. If Guif can win, tie the match or lose with less than three goals, they can go ahead and plan their trip to Berlin in may for the final playoffs. Scorers, Guif: Viktor stlund 5, Daniel Petterson 5(4), Mathias Tholin 5, Helge Freiman 3, Jesper Lundgren 3, Rickard kerman 2, Daniel Ekman 2, Atli Aevar Ingolfsson 2, Emil Andersson 1, Richard Blank 1.Scorers, Hamburg: Kentin Mah 8, Kevin Schmidt 4, Pascal Hens 3, Stefan Schrder 3, Petar Djordjic 2, Matthias Flohr 2, Adrian Pfahl 2, Alexandru Viorel Simicu 2.