Published 2024-01-23 13.38
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HAMBURG. The match is meaningless.
But Sweden-Norway tonight will be the first time Glenn Solberg and Martin Boquist face each other.
– We will say hello, they both say.
In the last EC, Glenn Solberg and Martin Boquist led Sweden to our first championship gold in 20 years.
Two months later came the shock news that Boquist was fired as assistant national team captain. Both Glenn Solberg and the union leadership only gave vague answers as to why Boquist was allowed to leave. Sportbladet revealed a few days later the big rift that had arisen between the two at the end of their time together in the national team.
Another two months later, in June 2022, Boquist spoke out in Sportbladet in a long interview. He claimed that it was Solberg who got him away and that they stopped talking to each other during the last gathering in March.
– Everything other than that it was Glenn who didn’t want to keep me is pure bullshit, Boquist said.
Solberg has never spoken out about the end of his and Boquist’s time together.
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full screen Martin Boquist. Photo: Pontus Orre
Stayed at the same hotel without meeting
Since the national team gathering in Poland in March 2022, Solberg and Boquist have had no contact.
They haven’t even been in the same room until the last week here in Hamburg at the EC hotel where both Norway, where Boquist is the assistant national team captain now, and Sweden live.
But according to Boquist, they haven’t run into each other even though they have press meetings in the same lobby and the teams have meeting rooms next to each other.
Have you been avoiding each other?
– I don’t know if we have that, says Boquist.
Regardless: tonight, in the completely meaningless EC match, they can’t avoid each other anyway and eyes will of course be on both of them ahead of the match.
What will it be like to meet Solberg?
– I don’t think so. I meet Sweden.
Will you greet each other?
– Obvious. It is included. You do that when it’s a handball match.
Solberg also says that they will, of course, greet each other.
Neither party in the infected relationship is particularly keen to talk about their first meeting tonight after the heartbreaking divorce.
– I think it will be completely normal. It had been a long time since we sat on the same bench. It’s not something I thought much about, says Solberg.
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fullscreenGlenn Solberg. Photo: Pontus Orre
“Will have many friends in the hall”
While it is the second time Solberg meets Norway (the first time was in European Championship 2022), it will be the first time Boquist stands as an opponent for Sweden after 219 international matches and another six years in blue and yellow clothes as assistant captain.
– I don’t know how it will turn out as I’ve never done it before. But I look forward to finding out. I will have many friends in the hall anyway. It is nice.
Except for one on Sweden’s bench, right?
– I will have a lot of friends in the hall, answers Boquist.
Solberg chooses to sing along to both countries’ national anthems before the match.
Boquist does the opposite.
– I probably won’t sing along to anyone, he says.
