LJUBLJANA (Slovenia) - Some teams just love the uphill battles.
"I'm very disappointed right now," Ludvig Hakanson was saying after Sweden had fallen to 0-3, following a home defeat to Estonia.
His coach, Mikko Riipinen echoed the sentiment, with a blank expression as it seemed like mission impossible to reach the Second Round at that moment.
Fast forward to July 2026, and Sweden are there. With three straight wins, they pulled off a miraculous comeback, forcing a four-way tie at 3-3 in Group H, with the points difference putting them through and eliminating Czechia.
The fact that they were 0-3 with two home games, and went 3-0 with two road games speaks volumes of their character.
These guys just love when you count them out. Not a lot of people expected them to come to Slovenia and lead for 37 minutes to calmly collect a win without any drama.
"Winning two games in a Window, that's not something that is easy to do for Sweden," Melwin Pantzar smiled after putting together a game with 14 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists.
Sweden won the game 88-79, and they were a +19 team with Pantzar on the floor.
Of course, life is easier when Pelle Larsson is around, as the Swedish NBA player counted to 31 points in 32 minutes in Ljubljana.
But the progress of this team has been off the charts recently. In FIBA EuroBasket 2025, they came out of nowhere to advance to the Round of 16, and refused to give up against Türkiye in the Round of 16, forcing Alperen Sengun and his teammate to play to their maximum for all 40 minutes.
With France, Finland and Hungary up next in their itinerary, there could be a chance to sneak through to the World Cup for the first time ever.
Maybe that's why the blank expression from the beginning of this story turned into a soft smile for coach Riipinen at the end of it.
"We're on a long journey to build Swedish basketball," he said.
"We took some steps forward before the FIBA EuroBasket, we're trying to put some young players into the group, making our player pool bigger and bigger. I'm really proud of the Federation, they helped us and put us in a good situation to perform."
Three straight wins were what they performed. Keep the run going, and the Federation will start booking flights to Qatar 2027.
FIBA