Sweden started the World Cup tournament at home with a win against probably the group’s strongest opponent, Brazil. Apart from a few too many burned situations, the national team captain is Glenn Solberg satisfied with the effort.
It ended up being a relatively easy journey for Sweden when Brazil was defeated in front of 11,627 spectators in Scandinavium. Sweden missed several clear chances in the first half but was able to win 26–18 (11–9) in the end.
– In terms of attack, there is actually quite a lot that is good, but we burn a little too many chances and there are a little too many technical errors. But what Brazil is best at is reading and taking shots and then there will be some technical errors. But it was a very good start for us, says Glenn Solberg the day after the match.
The Swedish wings were not very involved in the offensive game and unusually few finishes came from there. Hampus Wanne and Niclas Ekberg were also responsible for some uncharacteristic mistakes.
– I think we should be prepared for the fact that many teams will be down on our sides, but we have solved that before. We have very good wingers who are good at getting between one and two, so I think we will solve that. We still want to play wide in the field even if they (the wingers) don’t get the last pass.
Sweden meets Cape Verde tomorrow
Tomorrow is the second group stage match and Cape Verde – who won their opening match against Uruguay – are the opposition.
– We face a good team with extremely good individual players and skills. They are physically good and have very good dueling players and good shooting, so it is a good team. They played the final in the African Championships so we must continue with our defensive game and be aggressive and very compact, he says.
Andreas Palicka played the entire match against Brazil. Will he rest now?
– We haven’t decided that yet, but we have said that we want to use the whole team and the three goalkeepers we have in the best way, so that we can hopefully be in the tournament for a long time.
Sweden plays Cape Verde tomorrow (Saturday) at 20:30. The match is broadcast on TV6.
