The chance to reach the semifinals exists, but then all results must go Sweden's way in the conclusion of the preliminary round. Sweden needs to win its two matches against France on Sunday and Montenegro on Tuesday. Then, Hungary must beat Romania and France.
France took silver in the Olympic Games last summer and is the reigning World Champion from last year. Moreover, France beat Sweden in the semifinals in both championships.
It will be very tough, if we play like this against France, we will lose by 20. If we get this start against France, we are completely finished from the beginning, says Linn Blohm.
It went wrong directly in the match against Romania, primarily in the attacking play where there were ten technical faults in ten minutes and twelve in total in the half – most of them unprovoked as well. The balls were dropped, and passes did not come through.
It cannot happen. Then it is better to get technical faults when we really try, says Nathalie Hagman.
"Some matches become like this"
Moreover, Sweden burned very many goal chances, and the Romanian goalkeeper made a lot of saves.
23 goals forward and only eight in the first half is incredibly bad. Some matches become like this, that we collectively cannot score goals. Suddenly, nobody can score goals despite getting into good positions, says Blohm.
The score was 4–10 after 20 minutes of play. After a timeout, Sweden changed to 7–6-play in the attack (play without a goalkeeper and seven outfield players) which made Sweden able to catch up with Romania and go to halftime with 8–12.
In the second half, Sweden equalized with about five minutes left. But Romania pulled away again and won 25–23.
Focusing on playing better
National team coach Tomas Axnér has not given up on the semifinal hopes.
On the drawing board, there is a possibility to advance. I know that, and the players do. The most important thing is how we want to play handball, what behavior we want to have on the pitch. A prerequisite for advancing is that we play better. That is what we must focus on, he says.
This game we had today is not enough to beat Montenegro and France. We must do better, that is where we must start to have a chance to advance.
Hagman is optimistic:
It is still possible. We should win against France in two days, that is the prerequisite. Hope we do and play much better.
