Sweden will travel to the Olympic handball with a loss in their baggage.
The Swedes started well, but ultimately fell 29-30 to the Netherlands in the Olympic rehearsal.
We have some things to work on, says team captain Jamina Roberts in SVT.
A few minutes into the first half, it looked like it could be a stable Swedish victory in front of the home crowd at Scandinavium in Gothenburg.
But in the end, the Netherlands were a bit faster and stronger.
It looks good for large parts of the match. We've trained together for a bit, but we've only played 12 minutes of practice, says Jamina Roberts.
But they're doing very well too. We let in 30 goals, that's far too many.
Sweden is betting on a long build-up before the first Olympic match and is also traveling to Paris unusually early compared to other championships, four days before the first match.
Normally, we try to do everything in three days, now we have quite a few handball practices left before the premiere against Norway, said Tomas Axnér before the rehearsal.
That's when it matters. Now we've been working on our established attacking game for a while and haven't had much tempo in our practices yet.
Swedish National Coach
However, there was plenty of tempo when the match got underway. The Netherlands, with Swedish national coach Per Johansson - who recently led Hungarian Györi to Champions League victory - is, like Sweden, a team that likes to run a lot.
Nina Koppang started the scoring with a powerful shot via the crossbar. But despite a good start and Sweden's early four-goal lead, the first half was even.
Premiere against Norway
The Netherlands had read well and fought their way back, even taking the lead, although Sweden regained the lead at halftime, 17-15.
In the second half, the Netherlands managed to regain control and slipped away to a narrow victory in the rehearsal.
The teams will meet again in Uddevalla on Sunday, but not in an official national team match. Then only one Swedish internal match remains during the camp in Eskilstuna later in July before the Olympic premiere against Norway on July 25.
