Flags of the participating nations fly outside the Lusail Multipurpose Hall in Doha. With a capacity of 15,000 spectators is the arena the biggest of the three competition venues for the upcoming men’s Handball World Championship 2015. (EPA)


By Sports Reporter/Doha


Eleven medals at World Championships – no men’s handball team has collected more medals at World Championships than Sweden. Regardless if it was outdoor handball or indoors, since being one of the founders of the International Handball Federation Sweden has always remained near the top of the sport. The great strength is their endless pool of talent, as the nation has also won more medals at Men’s Youth and Junior World and European championships than any other.
The Swedish youth programme is one of the most successful and the most strategically planned in the world. In a country where handball is the number three team sport after ice hockey and football, young people join clubs in the hundreds and get a perfect education.
After some remarkable success in the old days, including the first World Championship title in 1958, the story of the major successes began in 1988 when Bengt Johansson was appointed new national team coach. With players like Magnus Wislander, Tomas Svensson, Staffan Olsson and Ola Lindgren the “Bengan Boys” were nearly unbeatable. Winning 13 medals at major events (World and European Championships, Olympic Games) from 1988 until 2002 this team dominated the world of handball for more than a decade.
Sweden won the World title in 1990 and 1999 and added two more silver and a pair of bronze medals on the world stage amd added four EURO titles (1994, 1998, 2000, 2002) to become European record champions. The only big trophy still missing from their trophy case is Olympic gold medal. Four times – including three straight from 1992 to 2000 – Sweden made it to the Olympic final and four times they were defeated.
“I cannot explain why, but we never made it. A pity,” said legendary Magnus Wislander, who was awarded World Handball Player of the Century.
Now he works as a radio commentator at major events and as a postman in daily life. From Doha he will again report on his former teammates Staffan Olsson and Ola Lindgren, who took over the Swedish team as coaches in 2008, after the ship began to sink. The “Tre Kronor” team had missed the 2007 World Championship in Germany and the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Olsson and Lindgren again put enormous energy in improving those talents and they finally achieved success when they again made it to the Olympic final in London. It was their fourth, but the first one as coaches, but even the fourth ended like the previous three: this time the loss came against France.
Somehow Sweden no longer possessed the stability which had made them so strong, proved by several modest results and even a failure on their way to a World Championship, when they were eliminated by Montenegro from the 2013 World Championship in Spain. But the current team is back to old strength. Sweden had always been able to count on a brilliant defence and world class goalkeepers.
In the latter it is even hard to decide which to choose, as Mattias Andersson (Champions League winner with Flensburg) or the THW Kiel duo Andreas Palicka and Johan Sjöstrand represent the top of the top. The defence is made of “Swedish oaks” Magnus Jernemyr and team captain Tobias Karlsson, another Flensburg Champions League winner.
In attack, the Swedish side mostly count on their fast counter attack specialists like Niklas Ekberg, the top scorer of the 2012 Olympic Games, and their back court ace Kim Andersson, three times a Champions League winner with THW Kiel. And for some years they have another jewel on the line player position: Andreas Nilsson, 2013 Champions League winner and IHF Super Globe finalist with HSV Hamburg, who now plays for Hungarian side Veszprem. At the European championship in January he missed only one of 26 shots, scoring the highest efficiency of all EURO players.
And as Sweden is the reigning World Junior Champion, players like Hampus Wanne and Jim Gottfridsson (two more Flensburg CL winners) are being integrated into the squad for Doha. At the 2015 World Championship Sweden will face France, Czech Republic, Algeria, Egypt and Iceland.
Coach Staffan Olsson hopes to at least reach the knock-out stage. “A draw for a World Championship is always like a lottery. No matter which teams you have to face, they are strong opponents. They will be very hard matches, but in the end we will have to see.”