Seven nations already qualified for the Main Round after 42 of 60 matches of the Preliminary Round: After France (group A),, Croatia (C),  Norway (B) and Poland (D) now Iceland, Hungary (both B) and Sweden (D) took the tickets to Malmö/Lund and Jonköping. Despite celebrating the Main Round qualification, the WCh host was shocked by losing against Argentina, Iceland took their fourth victory against Austria – thanks to this result also Hungary was qualified for the last 12 round.
 
Group B:
Austria –Iceland 23:26 (16:11)
It was a tough piece of work for the Icelandics to secure their Main Round ticket and to take revenge on the defeat in the EURO 2012 qualification against the brave fighting Austrians, who remain with two points and will go on in the President’s Cup like Japan and Brazil in their group. The Austrians showed their absolute will to win in the first half. In contrast to Iceland they found their pace very early and extended the gap minute by minute to 16:11 at the break – with a result like this, the group would have been open again. But Icelandic coach Gudmundur Gudmundsson found the right words in the dressing room, as his team played absolutely different afterwards. By scoring a 6:0 series the Northern Europeans took the lead for the first time at 17:16, before Austria equalized again and returned to the game with a 20:18 lead. Alexander Petterson started the decisive stage of the game as he brought the lead back to Iceland in minute 52. Austria couldn’t recover and Iceland won two points after a hard fight. Despite the Icelandic victory the Austrian Robert Weber was the top scorer with eight goals.

 
Group D:
Sweden – Argentina 22:27 (10:12)
More than 9000 Swedish spectators were shocked by this result – and the Argentines celebrated their second victory over a European team. Despite losing against the South Americans Sweden qualified for the Main Round with six points. Argentina is one point below and only one point (in their last match against Chile) away from the second stage of the competition. Match winner for the still surprising Gauchos was goalkeeper Matthias Schulz with 17 crucial saves. The host – losing their first match – couldn’t cope with the style the Argentines played. By missing too many chances Sweden was below most of the time. Until the 6:6 the match was equal, right after the break the Gauchos took the profit of their strong defense and goalkeeping and increased the gap to 16:11, especially thanks to the goals of top scorer Pizarro (in total six hits). Despite the great support of the spectators the Swedes couldn’t return to the game. When Niklas Ekberg scored for the 21:23 the Swedes hoped the last time on a victory, before the Argentines decided the game with a final 4:1 series. Swedish top scorer for Sweden was Jonas Larholm with five goals.

Photos by Sascha Klahn