It was an unlikely match that led to the overtime thriller that crushed Sweden’s golden dreams at the European Championships in Germany.
With less than a minute left, Blågult had brilliantly turned a seven-goal deficit into a 27-25 lead. France reduced once and got one last desperate attempt to equalize with a free throw as the game clock ticked 60:00.
Elohim Prandi ducked around the Swedish block and shot via the crossbar and Andreas Palicka’s back to make it 27-27 and take the match to overtime.
Sweden was never able to recover from that blow and France finally won clearly, 34-30, after 2×5 minutes of overtime.
Abrupt changes
The handball audience in Cologne had then seen a match with so many straight throws that it was difficult to keep up with the swings.
It started with star-studded France looking to tighten their grip on a finals place at breakneck speed.
An early Swedish lead of 3–1 turned into a 4–10 deficit when the game broke down during a period where basically nothing went right. The French shooters got the upper hand on Andreas Palicka, the Swedish outfield players were responsible for several technical errors and had also despaired badly against the goalkeeper Samir Bellahcene.
Felix Claar came in from the bench, single-handedly gained some momentum in the Swedish attacking game, but at half-time it was still an 11-17 deficit and a steep uphill battle.
– We have to play our best half that we have ever done in a national team context, in order to win, Claar said to Viaplay.
Huge turnaround
The scene change after intermission was huge. Sweden came out and did everything they failed to do at the beginning of the match. Palicka saved, Bellahcene didn’t, the blue-yellow game got flowing – and suddenly Sweden caught up when Jonathan Carlsbogård shot 18-18. Then the half was only nine minutes old.
Sweden had the support of the stands in the German giant arena, Palicka’s great play ignited the audience a little extra. Claar also played big and when Jim Gottfridsson shot 27-25 with just over a minute left, it looked like a new Swedish handball classic was about to be created.
It became a classic, however. But with a difficult, unhappy ending.
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