After Belarusian champions Meshkov Brest failed to repeat last season’s success and reach EHF Champions League Last 16, they will now shift their full focus towards SEHA - Gazprom League where their goal will be to qualify for what would be their seventh Final 4 tournament. First obstacle on the road will be Beijing Sport University. Meshkov will play Chinese representatives twice in two days in Brest.

First game is scheduled for Monday (16.15 CET) and second leg will be played a day later at the same time. Winners will meet Motor Zaporozhye in quarter-finals.

Regular participants of SEHA - Gazprom League F4 tournament Meshkov Brest are clear favorites ahead of this one, especially considering the fact BSU haven’t managed to win a single point in the regular part of the season. Chinese team has however shown a lot of signs of improvement and it will be interesting to see whether they will be capable to stun Belarusians.

Raul Alonso, Meshkov Brest coach:
This game comes only two days after our final CL group stage match against Porto so it will be interesting to see how much strength we’ll have left. We’re aware of the fact we are favorites, especially playing both matches at home. Our goal is to advance to the next round and we’ll do our best to open the gap in the first match.

Ivan Pesic, Meshkov Brest goalkeeper:
We’ve played Porto on Saturday and main goal will now be to get ready in the best possible way for what’s waiting for us against BSU. As coach said, goal is to defeat BSU and qualify for SEHA F4 tournament.

Vlado Sola, BSU coach:
Last week we’ve had a lot of injury problems but against Meshkov we’ll do our best to show everyone what we’ve been working on throughout the last three months. Trip to Brest was quite exhausting so I expect us to be better in the second leg.

Xie Qinlong, BSU player:
We’ve been training quite hard for the last three or four months so I hope we’ll on Monday and Tuesday be able to show everyone how much we’ve progressed both as a team and as individuals. Goal is to deliver our best performance and see what it eventually brings us.