It was the first time for Slovenia, who also participated in Sydney in 2000 and in Athens in 2004, to beat an European opponent at an Olympic tournament.

Slovenia were better than Sweden, the reigning Olympic vice-champions, in all elements of the game and avenged recent losses at the European Championships in Wroclaw and the Olympic qualifying tournament in Malmö.

Before defeating Sweden, Slovenia beat Egypt in the opening match on Sunday and followed it up with a win over the hosts Brazil on Tuesday to position themselves on top of group B and earn a berth in the quarter-finals.

By making it to the knock-out stage of the tournament, Slovenia already matched their best result at the Summer Olympics, which came in Sydney in 2000 (8th place).

Slovenia will wrap up the preliminary stage with matches against Germany on Saturday and against Poland on Monday.