Norway blow away neighbours Sweden with statement win in Dortmund

The Westfalenhalle in Dortmund witnessed one of the greatest-ever first half performances of Norway against Sweden as Norway coach Ole Gustav Gjekstad recorded his fourth, straight world championship win out of four.

Main Round, Group IV
Norway vs Sweden 39:26 (24:11)

The half-time score read like a full-time score – 24:11 to Norway and the game as a contest over.

It was an incredible display of attacking prowess against a Swedish side who opened with Filippa Idéhn in goal, playing her first tournament for Sweden since the EURO 2020, but as Henny Reistad scored her fifth and her side’s 11th with just over a quarter of the game gone and five ahead (11:6), first-choice Johanna Bundsen was brought in to steady the ship.

Against the Republic of Korea in the preliminary group stage, Norway had led by five (14:9) against Korea at the break, Angola nine (19:10) and Kazakhstan 14 (21:7) and it was fair to assume that Sweden would fait better, having seen of the Norwegians at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games by four just last year (34:28).

“I thought it was going to be a harder game but we made it really hard for them in the first half,” said Norway goalkeeper Eli Marie Raasok. “We just drove over them. We have a really good cooperation with the defence and we coach each other through the games. No-one is unbeatable and if we think that then we are going to lose. We are going to fight for every game and I hope we are going to win every game we play.”

But the result and victory marks an incredible turnaround for Norway, who are reinforcing their reputation as one of the two pre-tournament favourites, alongside France. It was just two strikes shy of their 41-goal haul against Kazakhstan and their second-highest score at Germany/Netherlands 2025.

This loss, combined with their final preliminary group game loss to Brazil last time out, means that Sweden now have little, if only a mathematical, chance of progressing through to the quarter-finals.

“We know that Norway is a really, really good handball team, I am more disappointed how we went on court today. We had big problems in the attack and we had technical faults and scored easy counter-attacks. We need to step up a lot more than today. We still have a chance for the quarter-finals and need to present better than we did today,” said Sweden’s Jenny Carlsson after the match.

hummel Player of the Match: Katrine Lunde (Norway)