Two years ago, the number of teams in the World Cup increased from 24 to 32 in the Egypt championship. It has opened doors for several countries where handball traditions have not been as strong as handball.
So far, the WC in Poland and Sweden have been free of surprising results, of which there were several in the football WC in Qatar. On Monday, Glenn Solberg’s Sweden won with 35 goals over Uruguay.
TV 2’s handball expert Bent Svele believes it has all been a failure.
– It is not good at all. It has been a rather uninteresting first week. Each group has one or a maximum of two eel-lined teams. There will be far too many broth battles.
Svele points out that it is only in the quarter-finals that the huge level differences are finally whispered out.
– There are 100 percent uninteresting matches. There will be no tension and the biggest teams don’t have to worry about anything. There are too many weak teams, and there will be a number of “rails” to the main round that will be overrun.
Olympic questions
Swedish star Jim Gottfridsson believes it has all been a failed expansion.
– I am against it. There are too many “blueberry fights”. Too many matches are played in the group stage where the numbers are a bit too big, he says The evening paper.
The background for the expansion of the WC was that the international handball federation wanted to spread the sport to larger parts of the world.
– They have a dream of turning handball into something more than a European sport. Because if not, handball could potentially be thrown out of the Olympic programme, says Svele.
NO FANS: Bent Svele has no sense that there are 32 teams in the WC. Photo: Geir Olsen
– Not very attractive for Sweden
In the Norwegian camp, there is little clear position. Most people see both pluses and minuses with 32 teams in the WC.
– We have to assume that the difference in level is large, but it is an assessment of which teams will participate, how many, what load, whether it is useful for everyone, possible B-championship… It is very different, says Magnus Abelvik Rød .
Gøran Johanessen sends a small jab to Sweden, which seems to be more lukewarm to the new arrangement.
– When IFH’s vision is to make handball bigger, then it just happens that way. We get nations that, from a European point of view, are too bad. It’s probably not very attractive for Sweden, he smiles.
Nor is national team manager Jonas Wille bombastic in his opinions.
– A big debate to which it is difficult to come up with a definitive answer. Maybe we need to spend time on this. The Netherlands was a nation we could not count on a few years ago, but now it is even. There are both pluses and minuses, he says.
