After an impressive opening ceremony and after the “Golden generation” of Swedish old stars had met in an friendly match the current Swedish team started well in their home World Championship. Even as they had problems in the very beginning Sweden beat WCh debutant Chile 28:18 (15:8).

Surprising to the more than 12.000 spectators in the Scandinavium in Gothenburg Chile led 4:2, before Sweden turned the page very fast. “We had some problems in attack and we can play much better,” right back Oscar Carlen said, who scored five minutes. His coach Staffan Olsson shared this opinion: “We have to discuss some basic things. But even when the result was close in the beginning, we remained patient. But we need more speed,” the Swedish coach said.

After the 2:4 Sweden scored six consecutive times and then controlled the game completely. But Chile stood strong with an aggressive defense and could keep the result in a quite close manner. Latest the one-sided match was decided in minute 44, when Sweden was in lead 22:13, later-on the host extended the gap to 26:14.

Top scorers were Salinas and Erwin Feuchtmann (each three for Chile) and WCh debutant Kim Ekdahl du Rietz with six goals for Sweden.