#1 ·
Here come the Danes again, those old acquaintances of ours. We run into them sooner or later at every championship, and here we are once more. We absolutely crushed them back in Portugal, but then lost that bronze medal match in Canada without even breaking a sweat. Later, we snatched a win against them with a last-second goal in Switzerland, only to lose to them again in the battle for third place.
We know them well, and they certainly know us. They’re dangerous—playing a lightning-fast game with quick attacks and almost no hesitation. We have to control them from the jump; the key is to stretch out our possessions and wait for the right opening rather than racing with them and letting their wingers tear us apart on the break after every one of our attacks. They racked up 8 fast-break goals against Norway, and if we let them do that to us, we're in trouble—though I don't think we need to worry too much. We have the most efficient offense in the tournament at 68%. We aren't wasteful; against Russia, we kept our attacking errors to an absolute minimum, and if we play like that against the Americans, we'll be fine. For context, Russia and Morocco only got 3 fast-break goals on us, and Korea only managed 1. On the flip side, our defense has been giving up quite a few: 9/13 against Korea, 6/9 against Morocco, and 6/7 against Russia. If we show a granite-solid defense, we can beat them with their own weapon. 👍
Their old regulars are there: Christiansen and Stryger on the wings, Hvidt playing like an octopus in goal, and Knudsen on the line. They're missing Jeppesen from the perimeter, but Boldsen and Jorgensen are stepping up... just a bunch of familiar faces. 🙂
As for our (much criticized) goalkeepers, they’re sitting at a 33% save rate, which is pretty middle-of-the-road or even slightly below average for this tournament. The French keepers are leading the pack at 41%, which isn't surprising, Omeyer is killing it again, and the Polish keepers seem to have gone totally rogue with save rates as high as 46%.
And finally, some good news to wrap things up: everything is looking ok with the feathers. 👋
We know them well, and they certainly know us. They’re dangerous—playing a lightning-fast game with quick attacks and almost no hesitation. We have to control them from the jump; the key is to stretch out our possessions and wait for the right opening rather than racing with them and letting their wingers tear us apart on the break after every one of our attacks. They racked up 8 fast-break goals against Norway, and if we let them do that to us, we're in trouble—though I don't think we need to worry too much. We have the most efficient offense in the tournament at 68%. We aren't wasteful; against Russia, we kept our attacking errors to an absolute minimum, and if we play like that against the Americans, we'll be fine. For context, Russia and Morocco only got 3 fast-break goals on us, and Korea only managed 1. On the flip side, our defense has been giving up quite a few: 9/13 against Korea, 6/9 against Morocco, and 6/7 against Russia. If we show a granite-solid defense, we can beat them with their own weapon. 👍
Their old regulars are there: Christiansen and Stryger on the wings, Hvidt playing like an octopus in goal, and Knudsen on the line. They're missing Jeppesen from the perimeter, but Boldsen and Jorgensen are stepping up... just a bunch of familiar faces. 🙂
As for our (much criticized) goalkeepers, they’re sitting at a 33% save rate, which is pretty middle-of-the-road or even slightly below average for this tournament. The French keepers are leading the pack at 41%, which isn't surprising, Omeyer is killing it again, and the Polish keepers seem to have gone totally rogue with save rates as high as 46%.
And finally, some good news to wrap things up: everything is looking ok with the feathers. 👋