Portner on fire as Swiss stand strong

20 Jan. 2021

Portner on fire as Swiss stand strong

Coming into their opening Main Round Group III game of Egypt 2021, Iceland brought two points with them and Switzerland zero, but by the end of this match both teams found themselves on a pair of points each with two 10:9 halves in favour of the Swiss.

Main Round Group III
Switzerland vs Iceland 20:18 (10:9)

“As a coach, I didn’t think we could be better in defence than we were against France, but I have to tell the guys our defence was even better today, it was incredibly good work, together with Nikola Portner in goal.”

These words from Swiss coach Michael Suter could be in contention for the Egypt 2021 understatement of the championship prize as he saw his side hold firm against Iceland, to collect their second win in Giza.

Portner ended with 13 saves in the game, but his sides’ early aggressive 7 vs 6 attack, which had served them well previously, looked to be their undoing as Iceland’s shot-stopper Bjorgvin Pall Gustavsson scored twice in quick succession into an empty goal to stop the Swiss going ahead (7:7, 19th minute). 

Both teams were keeping up with each other, but Portner ensured he did his bit going into the final five minutes of the half, making three saves, complete with a defensive block to stop Iceland scoring.

The statistics at half-time saw Portner with seven saves and with just two fast-breaks in the 30 minutes, it was not a game for attacking flair.

But the second half started with real drama as just a few minutes in, Iceland right back Alexander Petersson put his hand right in the face of the mid-air Switzerland right back Nicolas Ramey – who had received a little push in the back from Olafur Gudmundson. The referees had no choice but to show the Icelandic defender a direct red card and the momentum firmly swung in the direction of Suter’s side.

Soon, they opened up their first two-goal lead since midway through the first half (13:11, 36th minute), discarding their extra man in attack. They held the impetus until the last quarter, but Iceland came back and a Viggo Kristjansson penalty put them ahead for the first since the ninth minute (3:2).

By the time Suter took his second time out of the match (47th minute), his side had only scored four second half goals as he desperately tried to get their attack working, but their influential captain Andy Schmid found himself going deeper and deeper into the back court as Iceland’s defence paid him extra attention.

But Iceland were not firing in front of goal either, with the strong Swiss defence contributing to this faltering attack. This led Iceland coach Gudmundur Gudmundsson to take a time out to settle his side (15:16, 53rd minute)

The Swiss 7 vs 6 came back again soon after, but it was down the other end where the difference was as Portner denied Elvar Jonsson (17:18) and Schmid finally sealed the deal, to get his own back on the extra attention paid to him, making it 20:18 with just over 30 seconds remaining.

“My team was fighting very hard and doing everything to have a victory today but, in the end, we did not manage,” said Gudmundsson. “We played very, very good defence but we were not good enough in attack, our counter-attack were not good enough and we missed too many clear chances in a game which was so tight. In the end it is a match where small things here and there which decide the winners. We did not take two seven metres; we did not take rebounds, and this is a result.”

hummel Player of the Match: Nikola Portner, Switzerland