Sweden - Romania 25-30 (12-14)

Romania outplayed Sweden

By Rudi Dalsgaard
By means of a good and focused start, Romania practically settled the match against Sweden within the first 12 minutes. In particular the Romanian 9-metre player, Carmen Amariei, created the basis for the Romanian team, which during the match had a strong and sensible defence. The fast breaks were numerous when the Swedes lost the ball and the tackles were hard when the Swedes were in the offence.

It took two Romanian two-minute suspensions before the Swedes woke up and got back in the match. They went from 2-9 to 5-9 in three minutes, but as in the rest of the match the Swedes lost the ball too often when they were really close to gaining control of the match. This was immediately punished by the fast Romanian players.

However, at half-time the score was 12-14, particularly due to the fact that the Swedes played well at the end of the half and scored the last goal only five seconds before the 30 minutes had passed.

But the Swedes never really got started since the Romanians were too clever and their shots too efficient. Swedish Aasa Eriksson, the drive force on the Swedish team, was guarded closely and she only scored a total of two goals - the first one 55 minutes into the match. This was more than the Scandinavian team could handle when no one was able to take over for Eriksson.

The dominant Romanian players were Carmen Amariei, who scored 9 goals, and Anna Lazer, who scored 3 goals and played well in the defence. The Swedish top scorer, Matilda Boson, scored 5 goals.

'We are of course pleased with our victory', said the Romanian assistant coach, Aurelian Rosca. 'We have seen Sweden play in the matches prior to Euro 2002 and we knew that it is a great team. Now we just hope that we can play as well as we did against Austria when we face Yugoslavia'. The victory ensures that Romania is through to the main round which will be in Aarhus.

The Swedes were not quite so pleased:
'We played far worse than we did against Yugoslavia. We played far too slowly and made too many individual faults. Our terrible start was particularly responsible for our defeat although we fought our way back into the match. When we play Austria, we must play as we did against Yugoslavia!'

Sweden must win against Austria tomorrow in order to have a chance of going to main round.