It is a revenge-hungry Lag Edin that is competing at the WC in Switzerland. Despite the track record of six WC golds, seven EC golds, one Olympic gold, the last few years have been bad by the team’s standards. No medal at the WC and missed out on gold in the draw at the EC.
– Now it feels like we have a better chance to get out what we can, so to speak, says Niklas Edin, who underwent knee surgery before last year’s WC, to SVT Sport.
Ahead of the WC tournament in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, it looks very uncertain on paper in terms of favorites for the noblest medals. Sweden’s skipper Niklas Edin, 38, believes that the WC’s lineup is stronger and more even than ever.
Five teams – Canada, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy and Sweden – have roughly equal chances of winning the gold.
– Before the tournament starts, I would say that there is about a 20 percent chance of winning for us five teams and no team behind the five I think has a greater chance of winning – maybe a few percent but no more than that.
Favorite against Switzerland but not Scotland
On the other hand, Edin believes that if some of the five favorites are in a final, it will not be 50/50 who are the favorites to win.
– No, if you take out two of these teams in a final, they can look quite different. If we face Switzerland for example in a final I’d say we’re very big favorites to win whereas if we face Scotland, who we lost the EC final to, maybe it’s 50/50 or even they’re slight favorites .
The Swedish team, consisting of Niklas Edin, Christoffer Sundgren, Rasmus Wranå, Oskar Eriksson and Daniel Magnusson, starts the WC against the Netherlands on Saturday afternoon and the first match in SVT is played at 2pm on Easter Sunday against Switzerland.