Whatever Switzerland coach Michael Suter said to his side at half-time worked wonders against Austria as they turned a 13:13 score into a 18:14 lead by the 38th minute and never looked back to grab their first IHF Men’s World Championship points since 1995.

GROUP E: Austria v Switzerland 25:28 (13:13)

On Tuesday (12 January) the Swiss players were at home, but later that day they found themselves packing for Africa as it was confirmed that Switzerland would replace the USA at Egypt 2021. And just two days later they were on court at the Dr Hassan Moustafa Sports Hall in Giza, having arrived in the country just hours earlier.

It was understandable then that Andy Schmid, the superstar for Suter’s side, spent the first few seconds of the game doing some extra warm-up stretching on court and the rest of his team were also in need of a warm-up as they found themselves 3:0 down after just four minutes.

Eventually, the Swiss scored for the first time a minute later before finally equalising (4:4) with a nine-metre bullet from right back Nicolas Raemy in the ninth minute.

“It was the worst start we could have made,” said Schmid to ihf.info after the match. “It was really important to stay in touch in the first half as we could have gone in reverse if they’d gone five, six ahead. At half-time we said to ourselves: ‘now we have warm legs, we have played for 30 minutes and we can start to play ‘our’ handball’”.

And play their handball they did, restricting the Austrian dangerman Robert Weber to a solitary second half strike after a perfect six from six in the first, leaving Austrian coach Alex Pajovic downbeat with his team now preparing to face Norway and then France.

“We wanted to win this first game, it's a heavy defeat,” said the Austrian coach. “It was a little bit strange because of the corona situation; they changed the team, the USA didn't come, Switzerland came, and we didn't have much time to get ready, but right now it's hard to say what's wrong, it’s time to sleep on it and watch the game again. It’s not over, we still have two more games.”

For Switzerland, Schmid, who was voted as the best player in the match with seven goals, he is excited about the side he plays i

“It’s not so many tactical things, it’s the mentality; the will to win,” he said about the key to victory of his team. “This young, amazing team with some good, experienced player from the (German) Bundesliga are dangerous. We have an unbelievable mentality and that we showed today.”

hummel Player of the Match: Andy Schmid, Switzerland