European champions Norway ended their preliminary group campaign of the 2025 IHF Women’s World Championship in Trier with a 12-goal win over African champions to finish with a perfect record – three games and three wins.

GROUP H
Norway vs Angola 31:19 (19:10)

The victory means that Ole Gustav Gjekstad has a 100% record so far as a world championship coach and takes four points through to the main round in Dortmund where Norway will face Sweden, Brazil and Czechia.

Gjekstad made one change from the side which beat Kazakhstan last time out – a straight swap back in for goalkeeper Katrine Lunde with youngster June Cilie Krogh giving way, while Angola coach Carlos Viver kept with his same 16 for the third, successive game, goalkeeper Cristina Gregório Miguel and Lunde’s SU ZRK Crvena Zvezda teammate, right back Carlos Azenaide Danila Jose, left out again.

With a further two points to take into the main round at stake, both sides started with their strongest seven available and the line battle set to be an intriguing one with the 1,86m Albertina Kassoma going up against the 1,92m Kristine Breistol.

With a galaxy of stars in their team, led by Henny Reistad, Norway quickly turned the screw with Kassoma doing her very best to stop the attack on the Angolan line, an early two-minute for her (01:53) and Norway’s Stine Skogrand indicative of what was to come.

But captain Kassoma was then sent to the bench again (8th minute) at 4:2 down with her coach deciding the best course of action was to rest her ahead of a game suspension. Just a few minutes later Viver took his first time out (10th minute) as he could sense the game getting away from his side (6:2).

With Kassoma missing, Norway exploited the gaps, Nora Mork coming on briefly to take – and sink home – seven-metre shots, with all three scored by the half. Gradually, her side opened up a 10-goal lead just before half-time (19:9, 29th minute) thanks to a Henny Reistad rocket.

Skogrand did not receive her second two-minute until the 57th minute, highlighting the depth from the bench her side 12 ahead (30:18), eventually restricting their opponents to just nine second half strikes in a second half played at a lot less intensity.

Lunde ended with 10 shots and a 50% save rate, while Kassoma ended without a strike to her name – a rare occurrence and one that cannot happen again for her side should they wish to progress in Dortmund.

hummel Player of the Match: Katrine Lunde (Norway)