Sweden beat Belarus, overcoming Iouri Chevtsov's side by 19 goals to progress to an IHF Men's World Championship quarter-final against  hosts France on Tuesday (24 January) night in the Stade Pierre Mauroy - home of Lille football club.

EIGHTH-FINAL

Belarus vs Sweden 22:41 (11:24)
Stade Pierre Mauroy, Lille

In this one-sided eighth-final, Belarus ended with a goalkeeping save rate of just 18% and Sweden ended with a strike rate of 69% - and that was the game in a nutshell.

Belarus were in doubt about even making this stage of the competition after a tight preliminary group went down to the wire, but they left the court in no doubt about Sweden’s strength. They lead once in the game when Barys Pukhouski scored inside the opening minute but this was to be the only lead for his side in the whole 60 minutes.

The previous night, the Stade Pierre Mauroy – usual home of the French top football league side Lille – played host to a world championship record attendance of 28,010 when hosts France beat Iceland in their eighth-final and, while the 16.188 fans inside today were less, it was no less impressive.

Ahead of the match, talk had been about the two young guns facing off each other – Jerry Tollbring for Sweden and Artsem Karalek for Belarus – but all talk was swiftly ended as Sweden went on a 6:1 run over four minutes to go 10:5 up even after a Belarus time out.

The first half highlighted the strength in depth from the Swedes and, although Karalek scored a well-worked goal, completely with deft crossing and exchange play to make it 17:9 to their opponents, the Belarus side perhaps knew their time was up even before the break as they shouted hard at each other to try and encourage some sort of response.

A second time out from Belarus coach Iouri Chevtsov when his side went 10-down (20:10) could not stop the rot and Belarus counted down the minutes to the half-time break (24:11) having tried numerous ways to combat the deadly Swedish attack, led by chief missile-firer Lukas Nilsson. Belarus played seven in attack, aimed at stretching the Swedish defence but the Swedes were just too clinical.

Unsurprisingly, the second half saw the game put beyond any doubt as a 5:0 run, ended by three Jim Gottfridsson strikes, put Sweden ahead by 18 (37th minute) and in the 41st minute, the scoreboard flash up a shooting efficiency showing 45% for Belarus and 82% for Sweden, highlighting the hard work by the Swedish defence as Ivan Brouka shouted at his teammates to inspire a last push at France 2017, but it was not to be and as Belarus return home, Sweden – whose players heard of Denmark’s loss in the mixed zone after the game – have a relaxed but very focused feeling around them and will be relishing a chance to test themselves against “Les Experts” on Tuesday (24 January), a tougher test than their outing today.

Best Player of the Match presented by adidas: Jim GOTTFRIDSSON (SWE)

Quotes after the match:

Fredric PETTERSSON (SWE): “We went into this game with a focus on it being a really hard game until the end and I think we showed directly that we really wanted this and everybody fought – even if you came in as a substitute – it was a really good victory.

“It was mentally tough, but I think that everyone showed today, even the substitutes – you always want to do this when you’re in the national team. When someone came in new and fresh they also wanted to show that ‘I can provide for the team’ and that’s why it was so good; everyone did their best.”