Champions League Men: Highlights show and five talking points from matchday 6

1. Italy is the only country with two teams in the Quarter Final Stage, with Recco and Brescia both advancing from the Group Stage.

Hungary, Spain, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and, surprisingly, Germany are also part of the show with one club apiece. Brescia, having played back-to-back semis in 2021 and 2022, are back in the top eight after two calmer seasons.

Their reshaped team have enjoyed a fine run so far and produced one of the biggest upsets in the Group Stage by beating title-holders Ferencvaros in Budapest.

Recco remained the only unbeaten team in the field, maintaining a perfect record throughout the six rounds.

In fact, their last game in Split, a match with nothing at stake, was the closest one as they only won by two; previously, they had 4+ goal victories.

2. The Group Stage produced two big falls – Radnicki Kragujevac and Marseille failed to reach the next round despite their star-studded line-ups.

These two teams were put together to be in the race for the Final Four berths, let alone for the trophy if we think of Radnicki and their golden line of Olympic champions, but they did not even make the QF Stage.

It’s a big setback for the French, who managed to make the Final Four for the first time last season, and they kicked off their campaign in a way which suggested they had set nothing less as their target for this year.

Marseille’s two big wins in the first two rounds were brilliant as they hit 20 against Hannover and claimed an astonishing away win in Barceloneta.

What came next was anything but expected. Losing at home to Sabadell, followed by a shocking defeat in Hannover, sent them into free fall, and they suffered another loss to CNAB in Marseille and were unable to raise their levels after the European Championships break.

A fourth straight loss, this time in Sabadell, though the Spanish had nothing to fight for apart from their pride, completed their miserable run and relegated them to the Euro Cup.

3. Just weeks after the triumphant Europeans in Belgrade, both Serbian clubs had to fight for a lifeline on Day 6. And the outcome was somewhat stunning as it was Novi Beograd that made the cut by beating Jadran Herceg Novi in Montenegro with a convincing performance, while Radnicki Kragujevac came up short.

In the past years, the Novi Beograd project took centre stage in Serbia as they signed most of the stars, but recently the power shifted to Kragujevac and the biggest stars started moving to Radnicki.

By this season, the team seemed to be ready to take over NBG’s role in conquering the summit. The Belgrade-based side had four attempts to lift the Champions League trophy, but lost three finals between 2022 and 2025.

Radnicki snapped up most of their aces, and having the Rasovic and Jaksic brothers on board, alongside two legends, Dusko Pijetlovic and Andrija Prlainovic, plus the smart Greek Angelos Vlachopoulos and many more greats, many thought Radnicki would be the threat from Serbia this season, just as they had been some 10 years ago when they finished runners-up in the CL in 2014.

However, they were unable to deliver as they fell to Mladost in Zagreb and to Olympiacos at home, and in this tough group it was enough to sit on the brink of elimination.

On Day 6, they should have beaten the Greeks in regular time. Indeed, Olympiacos could have afforded it as only a multiple-goal defeat would have dropped them out of the race.

But the Greeks had no intention of letting the game go, and a 4-0 opening put Radnicki under enormous pressure.

Credit to the Serbs that they managed to fight their way back, though only at the very end, so they had only one possession to score and win in regular time.

Despite it being replayed at 11-11 amidst some chaos, they could not create a clear shooting chance in seven-on-six, so they are now back in the Euro Cup where they were runners-up last year.

The only good news for Radnicki is Recco returned to (and remain in) the Champions League, so the Serbs still have a realistic chance of lifting a European trophy this season (the Italians swept them aside in the EC final last year).

4. Waspo Hannover’s return to the top eight is definitely the most amazing story of the Group Stage.

In the company of Barceloneta, Marseille and Sabadell, they were the underdogs; even a zero-point run was on the cards.

Instead, the Germans came up with outstanding home performances, which were normal in the good old days when they were regular participants in the Final Eight, and not only when they were the hosts. However, in recent seasons they could not really keep those levels.

Their start was disastrous as they were soundly beaten in Marseille (9-20), but then they caught Sabadell, took revenge on the French, and added a stunning away win in Sabadell.

And this was enough to take over the runners-up spot from Marseille, behind CNAB.

Ironically, the French were drawn into the Spaniards’ group for the third time in a row, and in the previous two years they qualified for the QF Stage with nine points both in 2024 and 2025, the lowest from any advancing sides since the new playing format has been in place.

This time it was Waspo that managed to go through with only three wins, as Marseille and Sabadell could only bag two victories each.

5. When FTC-Telekom beat Primorac Kotor 26-15 on Day 3, there were two takeaways from that game. One, Fradi needed to do something as their defence looked anything but tight (they conceded 17 in Brescia in the previous round).

And second, there was no way to see a similar match with at least 40 goals – prime entertainment for the fans (not that much for the coaches).

Three months on, they reproduced almost the very same scoreline as Fradi won 15-25 in Kotor. Which also raises the same question – whether the title-holders can tighten their defence for the following stage where they will face a lot more quality.

Back in November-December, Fradi managed to restore order in their backyard and showed some fine defending in their key matches.

At the same time, this was another testament to the Hungarians’ strength, as they hit 25 though they had travelled to Montenegro without Krisztian Manhercz and Gergo Fekete, two of their most prolific goal-scorers (they were given some extra rest after the Europeans where they barely sat on the bench while playing major roles in Hungary’s silver medal-winning campaign).

Also, number one goalkeeper Soma Vogel stayed at home, which also serves as a kind of explanation for the higher number of conceded goals.

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Gergely Csurka for European Aquatics

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