Partizan's Champions League Return Ends in 44-33 Loss
Partizan's handball team lost to Fuchse Berlin 44-33 (23-15) in the opening round of Champions League Group A, their first appearance in the elite competition in 13 years.
When he walked out to face reporters after the final whistle, Andrej Trnavac first looked up at the stands of the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall, where around three thousand fans had cheered on the black and whites until the last minute. On Thursday, September 10, 2026, Partizan returned to the Champions League after 13 years, and did so straight away against one of the toughest opponents possible.
Germany’s Fuchse Berlin, finalists in the Champions League for the past two seasons and the reigning European runners up, arrived in Belgrade as the outright favorites of Group A. Partizan played boldly in the opening minutes and kept pace with the visitors, but the Germans broke the game open midway through the first half and pulled away to a lead the hosts could never threaten again.
Fuchse Berlin led 23-15 at the break, and the gap only grew after the restart. The German side kept up a high tempo until the final whistle and closed out a convincing 44-33 win, confirming right from the start of the group stage that they are the strongest candidate for first place in Group A.
Mathias Gidsel was the most effective player on the court, scoring nine goals for the visitors, while Tobias Grondahl added eight of his own. For Partizan, Nikola Crnoglavac, Vladislav Kules and Tobias Wagner each scored six, but that wasn’t enough to keep the first-half gap under control.
Speaking to Kurir after the match, Trnavac admitted that technical errors cost his team more than the actual gap in quality against the Germans. “It was tough at the end, unfortunately. An eleven-goal difference, but I can say we started well. I’m sorry we didn’t capitalize early on some fast breaks off our excellent defense,” said the Partizan goalkeeper.
He also explained exactly where the plan against the German champions fell apart. “In the end, we made a lot of our own technical errors, conceded a lot of empty-net goals. We conceded a lot of goals even right after scoring ourselves through the center into an empty net, so maybe that ended up being decisive,” Trnavac added.
The Partizan goalkeeper made no secret of his respect for the team from Berlin. “Unfortunately, we know what kind of team this is. It’s maybe the best team in the world, led by Gidsel,” Trnavac said.
Despite the lopsided defeat, he stressed that the return to the elite competition, in front of the club’s own fans, was the fulfillment of a long-held dream. “I can say it feels good. This is something all of us here, who have been at Partizan since we were kids, have dreamed of. So it was wonderful. I’m sorry about the result and all that, but we hope it will be better next time,” Trnavac concluded.
We wrote about the return to the Champions League and this very matchup with Fuchse Berlin ahead of the start of the group stage, when the German team was billed as the first and toughest obstacle on Partizan’s path into elite company. That preview held up completely, with one caveat: in stretches, the black and whites physically and technically matched Europe’s elite, but every run of mistakes against a team of Fuchse’s quality immediately turned into a double-digit gap on the scoreboard.
Partizan now turns to the rest of Group A in search of their first points, against opponents who don’t carry the quality of the reigning European runners up. Only then will it become clear whether the loss to Fuchse Berlin was simply the price of learning among the best, or a sign of a harder road through the elite competition the black and whites have returned to after 13 years.
