2019–20 SEHA League

The 2019–20 SEHA League season was the ninth season of the SEHA (South East Handball Association) League and sixth under the sponsorship of the Russian oil and gas company Gazprom. Twelve teams from nine countries (Belarus, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia and China were participating in this year's competition.^[1] On 13 August the Executive Committee of the SEHA – Gazprom League has made a decision that because of the crucial disagreements over conditions regarding the participation in the 2019/20 season, Tatabánya will not participate in the SEHA – Gazprom League this season.^[2]

2019–20 SEHA League season
League	SEHA League
Sport	Handball
Duration	3 September 2019–6 September 2020
Number of games	80
Number of teams	12  Belarus (1 team)  China (1 team)  Croatia (2 teams)  Hungary (1 team)  North Macedonia (2 teams)  Russia (1 team)  Serbia (2 teams)  Ukraine (1 team)  Slovakia (1 team)
Regular season
Top scorer	Mikita Vailupau (111 goals)
Final Four
Finals champions	Telekom Veszprém
Runners-up	Vardar 1961
Finals MVP	Rodrigo Corrales

Vardar 1961 were defending champions.

Final four tournament was held at Krešimir Ćosić Hall in Zadar, Croatia, on 4 and September 2020. Telekom Veszprém defeated Vardar 1961 30–29 in the final to win their third title.

Competition format

Twelve teams, divided into two groups participated in the competition. Groups A and B were played with six teams each, in a round robin, home and away format. The top two teams in each group qualified directly for the quarter-finals, while the teams that finish the Group Phase in positions 3–6 played in the Play off phase.^[3]

Play off Phase

8 teams played home and away in the Play off phase, with the teams that finish the Group Phase in positions 3–6.

Quarter-finals

The four winners of the matches in the Play off phase, joined by the top two of Groups A and B, played home and away for the right to contest the SEHA Final 4.

SEHA Final 4

The culmination of the season, the SEHA Final 4, continues in its existing format, with the four top teams from the competition competing for the title over one weekend. The host and schedule for this year's Final Four tournament was announced on 25 February 2020.

Team information

The SEHA – Gazprom League Executive Committee made decision that 12 participants will play in two groups in the upcoming season. Telekom Veszprem, Motor Zaporizhzhia, Eurofarm Pelister, Metaloplastika Sabac, HC Spartak Moscow and Beijing Sport University are the new clubs that will join the 9th SEHA – Gazprom League season.^[4][5]

Venues and locations

Country	Team	City	Venue (Capacity)
Belarus	Meshkov Brest	Brest	Universal Sports Complex Victoria (3,740)
China	Beijing Sport University	Beijing1	Dom sportova 2, Zagreb (3,100)[6]
Croatia	PPD Zagreb	Zagreb	Dom sportova 2 (3,100)
	Nexe	Našice	Sportska dvorana kralja Tomislava (2,500)
Hungary	Telekom Veszprém	Veszprém	Veszprém Aréna (5,096)
Macedonia	Vardar 1961	Skopje	Jane Sandanski Arena (6,500)
	Eurofarm Pelister	Bitola	Sports Hall Boro Čurlevski (3,700)
Serbia	Metaloplastika	Šabac	Zorka Hall (3,000)
	Vojvodina	Novi Sad	Sportski centar Slana Bara (2,000)
Russia	Spartak Moscow	Moscow	Dynamo Sports Palace (5,000)
Ukraine	Motor Zaporizhzhia	Zaporizhzhia	Yunost Sport Hall (3,600)
Slovakia	Tatran Prešov	Prešov	Tatran Handball Arena (4,870)

Notes

¹ Beijing Sport University will play all of their home matches in Zagreb, Croatia.

PPD Zagreb Nexe Vardar 1961 Eurofarm Pelister Metaloplastika Vojvodina Location of teams in 2019–20 SEHA League (Croatia, North Macedonia, and Serbia) Telekom Veszprém Location of teams in 2019–20 SEHA League (Hungary)

Meshkov Brest Location of teams in 2019–20 SEHA League (Belarus) Tatran Prešov Location of teams in 2019–20 SEHA League (Slovakia)

Motor Zaporizhzhia Location of teams in 2019–20 SEHA League (Ukraine) Beijing Sport University Location of teams in 2019–20 SEHA League (China)

Spartak Moscow Location of teams in 2019–20 SEHA League (Russia)

Personnel and kits

Following is the list of clubs competing in 2019–20 SEHA League, with their manager, team captain, kit manufacturer and shirt sponsor.

Team	Head coach	Team captain	Kit manufacturer
Meshkov Brest	Raúl Alonso	Ivan Pesic	Joma
PPD Zagreb	Veselin Vujović	Zlatko Horvat	Hummel
Nexe	Hrvoje Horvat	Vedran Zrnić	Jako
Vardar 1961	Stevče Aluševski	Stojanče Stoilov	Hummel
Eurofarm Pelister	Željko Babić	Goce Ojleski	Unit Sport
Telekom Veszprém	David Davis	Máté Lékai	2Rule
Vojvodina	Boris Rojević	Vukašin Stojanović	NAAI
Tatran Prešov	Slavko Goluža	Radovan Pekár	ATAK Sportswear
Metaloplastika	Veselin Vuković	Borivoje Đukić	Unit Sport
Motor Zaporizhzhia	Rostislav Lanevich	Zakhar Denysov	Hummel
Spartak Moscow	Igor Lyovshin	Dimitry Kovalev	Puma
Beijing Sport University	Vlado Šola	Wang Wei	Hummel

Coaching changes

Round	Club	Outgoing coach	Date of change	Incoming coach
3rd	PPD Zagreb	Branko Tamše[7]	24 September 2019	Veselin Vujović
5th	Vardar 1961	David Pisonero[8]	17 October 2019	Eduard Koksharov
7th	Motor Zaporizhzhia	Mykola Stepanets[9]	12 November 2019	Rostislav Lanevich
7th	Eurofarm Pelister	Stevče Aluševski[10]	24 November 2019	Božidar Mojsov
10th	Vardar 1961	Eduard Koksharov[11]	28 December 2019	Stevče Aluševski
10th	Eurofarm Pelister	Božidar Mojsov[12]	8 January 2020	Željko Babić

Group phase

In the Group Phase, each team played ten matches within their respective groups. Five matches were played at home, and five matches away. The final position after the ten rounds determined if a club will play in the Play off phase or if they will earn a direct placement to the quarterfinals phase.^[13][14]

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		VAR	ZAP	PRE	VOJ	NEX	BEJ
1	Vardar 1961	10	8	0	2	319	291	+28	24[a]	Quarter finals		—	44–37	28–26	26–23	27–25	37–23
2	Motor Zaporizhzhia	10	8	0	2	314	274	+40	24[a]			32–31	—	29–23	37–29	33–31	41–19
3	Tatran Prešov	10	5	0	5	262	242	+20	15[b]	Playoffs		22–29	24–25	—	22–18	24–22	38–25
4	Vojvodina	10	5	0	5	269	265	+4	15[b]			33–35	25–22	23–22	—	29–23	38–25
5	Nexe	10	4	0	6	299	268	+31	12			42–26	25–28	24–25	32–24	—	40–26
6	Beijing Sport University	10	0	0	10	235	358	−123	0			28–36	23–30	19–36	21–28	26–35	—

Source: SEHA
Notes:

1. Vardar 1961 75–69 Motor Zaporizhzhia
2. Tatran Prešov 44–41 Vojvodina

Group B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		VES	ZAG	MES	PEL	MET	SPA
1	Telekom Veszprém	10	8	0	2	306	265	+41	24	Quarter finals		—	36–28	32–23	35–24	36–29	37–32
2	PPD Zagreb	10	7	0	3	289	259	+30	21			23–26	—	30–24	24–23	30–25	30–17
3	Meshkov Brest	10	6	0	4	307	279	+28	18	Playoffs		27–28	33–29	—	31–22	32–21	35–24
4	Eurofarm Pelister	10	4	0	6	279	275	+4	12[a]			26–24	27–28	32–35	—	32–21	34–29
5	Metaloplastika	10	4	0	6	272	302	−30	12[a]			30–26	25–28	35–33	27–26	—	27–23
6	Spartak Moscow	10	1	0	9	254	327	−73	3			23–26	23–39	26–34	21–33	36–32	—

Source: SEHA
Notes:

1. Eurofarm Pelister 58–48 Metaloplastika

Playoffs

The Play off phase was made up of two matches for each participating team, one match played at home and one match played away. The teams that finished the Group Phase in positions 3–6 played in the Play off phase.

Overview

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Spartak Moscow	45–63	Tatran Prešov	23–31	22–32
Metaloplastika	48–51	Vojvodina	24–25	24–26
Nexe	45–44	Eurofarm Pelister	23–20	22–24
Beijing Sport University	49–87 1	Meshkov Brest	26–46	23–41

Notes

¹ Both legs were hosted by Meshkov Brest.

Matches

2 February 2020 17:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Spartak Moscow	23–31	Tatran Prešov	Dynamo Sports Palace, Moscow Attendance: 250 Referees: Nabokau, Kulik (BLR)
	Vinogradov 6	(13–15)	Rábek 9
	2× 6×	Report	1× 4×

8 February 2020 18:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Tatran Prešov	32–22	Spartak Moscow	Tatran Handball Arena, Prešov Attendance: 2,475 Referees: Boričič, Marković (SRB)
	Rábek 9	(16–11)	Voiniush 5
	1× 6×	Report	2× 4×

Tatran Prešov won 63–45 on aggregate.

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2 February 2020 19:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Metaloplastika	24–25	Vojvodina	Zorka Hall, Šabac Attendance: 1,500 Referees: Gubica, Milošević (CRO)
	Milić 8	(14–12)	Nikolić 7
	1× 4× 1×	Report	2× 7×

11 February 2020 17:15 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Vojvodina	26–24	Metaloplastika	Sportski centar Slana Bara, Novi Sad Attendance: 552 Referees: Nachevski, Nikolov (MKD)
	Grozdanić 5	(11–12)	Milić 5
	2× 9×	Report	2× 7×

Vojvodina won 51–48 on aggregate.

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1 February 2020 15:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Nexe	23–20	Eurofarm Pelister	Sportska dvorana kralja Tomislava, Našice Attendance: 2,150 Referees: Horváth, Márton (HUN)
	B. Jaman, Kević 4	(10–9)	Ostroushko 7
	2× 3×	Report	2× 1×

12 February 2020 20:15 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Eurofarm Pelister	24–22	Nexe	Sports Hall Boro Čurlevski, Bitola Attendance: 3,000 Referees: Nikolić, Stojković (SRB)
	Jotić 5	(13–10)	Severec 5
	2× 2×	Report	3× 4×

Nexe won 45–44 on aggregate.

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2 March 2020 16:15 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Beijing Sport University	26–46	Meshkov Brest	Sportshall Victoria, Brest Attendance: 215 Referees: Antashev, Musatov (RUS)
	Qinglong 6	(14–20)	Baranau 8
	1× 5×	Report	1× 4×

3 March 2020 16:15 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Meshkov Brest	41–23	Beijing Sport University	Sportshall Victoria, Brest Attendance: 165 Referees: Antashev, Musatov (RUS)
	Baranau 9	(20–11)	Juncheng 5
	2× 1×	Report	2× 4×

Meshkov Brest won 87–49 on aggregate.

Quarter-finals

There will be eight teams competing in the quarter-finals phase. Four teams will have earned a direct placement after the Group Phase, and four additional teams will have earned a quarter-finals spot through the playoff phase.

The SEHA – Gazprom League’s commissioner on Friday 13 March 2020 has made a decision to postpone SEHA - Gazprom League Quarter final 2nd leg matches: Telekom Veszprem – Vojvodina (14 March 2020) and Vardar 1961 - Nexe (15 March 2020), due to the ongoing developments in the spread of COVID-19 across Europe. All further updates will be published accordingly.^[15]

Overview

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Nexe	56–56	Vardar 1961	30–31	26-25
Vojvodina	26–41	Telekom Veszprém	26–31	0–10
Meshkov Brest	63–56	Motor Zaporizhzhia	30–28	33–28
Tatran Prešov	37–53	PPD Zagreb	21–25	16–28

Matches

8 March 2020 17:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Nexe	30–31	Vardar 1961	Sportska dvorana kralja Tomislava, Našice Attendance: 2,560 Referees: Brunovský, Čanda (SVK)
	Pešić 7	(15–15)	Dibirov 12
	2× 4×	Report	1× 2×

29 August 2020 20:15 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Vardar 1961	25–26	Nexe	Jane Sandanski Arena, Skopje Referees: Boričić, Marković (SRB)
	Dissinger, Čupić 5	(13–13)	Jaganjac 8
	5× 2×	Report	5× 2×

Vardar 1961 won 56–56 on aggregate on away goals.

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8 March 2020 13:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Vojvodina	26–31	Telekom Veszprém	Sportski centar Slana Bara, Novi Sad Attendance: 1,250 Referees: Metalari, Nikolovski (MKD)
	Stojković 9	(10–15)	Štrlek 7
	2× 5×	Report	6×

25 August 2020	Telekom Veszprém	10–0 (awarded)	Vojvodina	Veszprém Aréna, Veszprém
		Report

• HC Vojvodina has informed the SEHA – Gazprom League Board that due to epidemiological and transport issues which occurred in Serbia caused by the pandemic situation, they were not able to travel to Hungary, for the 2nd leg of the SEHA Quarter finals against Telekom Veszprém.^[16] SEHA - Gazprom League’s Commissioner regarding mentioned match, decided the game to be awarded 10–0 in favor of Telekom Veszprém, according to the League’s regulations.

Telekom Veszprém won 41–26 on aggregate.

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7 March 2020 15:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Meshkov Brest	30–28	Motor Zaporizhzhia	Sportshall Victoria, Brest Attendance: 1,000 Referees: Pandžić, Mošorinski (SRB)
	Shkurinskiy 6	(16–15)	Ganchev 6
	3× 1×	Report	2× 2×

12 March 2020 17:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Motor Zaporizhzhia	28–33	Meshkov Brest	Yunost Sport Hall, Zaporizhzhia Attendance: 200 Referees: Gubica, Milošević (CRO)
	Pukhouski 7	(11–15)	Vailupau 8
	3× 5×	Report	3×

Meshkov Brest won 63–56 on aggregate.

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7 March 2020 17:15 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Tatran Prešov	21–25	PPD Zagreb	Tatran Handball Arena, Prešov Attendance: 1,439 Referees: Nachevski, Nikolov (MKD)
	Pacheco 9	(11–11)	Mandić 6
	3× 4× 1×	Report	3× 6× 1×

11 March 2020 20:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	PPD Zagreb	28–16	Tatran Prešov	Dom sportova 2, Zagreb Attendance: 0 Referees: Todorovski, Mitrevski (MKD)
	Božović, Horvat 6	(12–9)	Pacheco 4
	1× 2×	Report	2× 2×

PPD Zagreb won 53–37 on aggregate.

Final Four

The four winners of the quarter-final matches qualify for the right to contest the SEHA final four. The SEHA - Gazprom League Executive Committee had made the decision for the final four tournament to be held at the Krešimir Ćosić Hall in Zadar, Croatia, on 3 and 5 April 2020.^[17] Due to the current situation in the spread of COVID-19 across Europe and further objective reasons, SEHA Executive Committee has made a decision to postpone the Final 4 indefinitely. All further updates will be published accordingly.^[18] On 11 August 2020 the SEHA - Gazprom League Executive Committee announced the decision for the final four tournament to be held at the Krešimir Ćosić Hall in Zadar, Croatia, on 4 and 6 September 2020.^[19]

Bracket

	Semifinals				Final
	4 Sep
	Vardar 1961 (Pen.)	30
					6 Sep
	PPD Zagreb	29
					Vardar 1961	27
	4 Sep
					Telekom Veszprém	35
	Telekom Veszprém	28
	Meshkov Brest	24
					Third place
					6 Sep
					PPD Zagreb	24
					Meshkov Brest	29

Semifinals

4 September 2020 20:30 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Vardar 1961	30–29	PPD Zagreb	Krešimir Ćosić Hall, Zadar Attendance: 500 Referees: Boričić, Marković (SRB)
	Dibirov, Dissinger 5	(13–16)	Mandić 7
	2× 1×	Report	5× 2×
	FT: 26–26 Pen: 4–3

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4 September 2020 18:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Telekom Veszprém	28–24	Meshkov Brest	Krešimir Ćosić Hall, Zadar Attendance: 500 Referees: Jurinović, Mrvica (CRO)
	Marguč, Nenadić 6	(12–13)	Panić, Shkurinskiy 6
	5× 2×	Report	2× 2×

Match for third place

6 September 2020 18:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)	PPD Zagreb	24–29	Meshkov Brest	Krešimir Ćosić Hall, Zadar Attendance: 500 Referees: Mitrevski, Todorovski (MKD)
	Obradović 5	(12–14)	Yurynok 7
	4× 3×	Report	6× 4×

Final

6 September 2020 20:30 CEST (UTC+02:00)	Vardar 1961	27–35	Telekom Veszprém	Krešimir Ćosić Hall, Zadar Attendance: 500 Referees: Gubica, Milošević (CRO)
	Kalarash 6	(12–15)	Nenadić 5
	5× 2×	Report	2× 2×

Top goalscorers

Rank	Player	Club	Goals[20]
1	Mikita Vailupau	Meshkov Brest	111
2	Lovro Jotić	Eurofarm Pelister	68
3	Timur Dibirov	Vardar 1961	66

Awards

The all-star team was announced on 6 September 2020.^[21]

• Goalkeeper:  Rodrigo Corrales (ESP)
• Right wing:  Gašper Marguč (SLO)
• Right back:  Jorge Maqueda (ESP)
• Centre back:  Lovro Jotić (CRO)
• Left back:  Alexander Shkurinskiy (RUS)
• Left wing:  David Mandić (CRO)
• Pivot:  Andreas Nilsson (SWE)
• Best Defender:  Blaž Blagotinšek (SLO)
• MVP of the Final four:  Rodrigo Corrales (ESP)