Niklas Landin and Denmark have achieved an incredible feat, reaching a third consecutive Olympic final, but the nature of the 31:30 victory over Slovenia left the atmosphere feeling a little hollow in the immediate aftermath.
“It’s a really confusing atmosphere right now. We’ve advanced to our third Olympic final in a row but among the guys, it’s not the mood we’re supposed to have,” says Landin, who was brought in between the posts halfway through the second half to close out the game but was left a little abandoned by his defence as Slovenia weaved their way back into the contest from six goals down.
“I feel we played really well for the first 45 minutes and then completely lost our head and invited Slovenia back into the game.”
“Then we lost it”
Understanding the context of reaching another major final, Landin tried to focus on some positives from the dramatic contest.
“We had a really good match until then, we were organised and produced both good defence and attack, then we lost it.”
Denmark will have one full day to recover and figure out where they can fix things, having almost thrown away a lead in the final seconds of two knockout games in a row.
They take on Germany in the gold medal match on Sunday at 13:30 CEST.