Despite being the first time Matex Marabadminton participates in the European Club Championships, the team showed us that anything’s possible.
Yesterday was the last day of competition, and the two finalist teams – Matex Marabadminton (Italy) and Recreativo IES La Orden (Spain) – played four thrilling matches until a winner was defined.
The Italian team played since the first day of the Championships, with only a break on the second, and managed to win all matches until the finals. On the first day, 19 June, Matex Marabadminton beat CDR Prazeres (Portugal) 5-0 and two days later faced the hometown team CB Oviedo, and yet again won 5-0.
Closer to the end, on 22 June, Matex Marabadminton triumphed in the quarterfinals and semifinals versus Helsingfors BC RF (Finland) and Port of Baku SC (Azerbaijan), respectively. The finals day was the only time the team lost a match. Pablo Abian, playing with Recreativo IES La Orden, gave a good fight to Christopher Vittoriani and beat the 20-year-old athlete 18-21 21-6 21-17.
But this was not enough to defeat the young Italian team. Andreas Søndergaard/ Malena Norrman, Ania Setien, and Lucia Rodriguez/ Malena Norrman fought hard to get the gold and in roughly 3 hours Matex Marabadminton won the trophy, beating Recreativo IES La Orden 3-1.