Isabelle Haak Sets EuroVolley Scoring Record as Sweden Rallies from Two Sets Down to Beat Croatia

Sweden needed every bit of its home crowd's energy on this one. Down two sets to none against Croatia in Gothenburg, the co-hosts clawed their way back to win 3-2, and did it behind a performance from opposite hitter Isabelle Haak that now stands as the biggest single-match scoring output in EuroVolley history.

A Match That Started Looking Like a Blowout the Other Way

Croatia came out swinging and took the first two sets comfortably, 25-16 and 25-22, the kind of start that had Sweden facing an early exit from contention in a pool where every result matters. But the match flipped once the hosts settled in. Sweden won the third and fourth sets, 25-19 and 25-16, to force a decider, then survived a tight, error-conscious fifth set to close it out 23-21 and take the match 3-2.

The result is Sweden's third win of the tournament, and it keeps the co-hosts firmly in the mix near the top of Pool D, a group we flagged coming in as Italy's to lose but one where Sweden's ability to grind out results in front of its own fans has been a recurring theme. This is now the second time in the tournament Sweden has needed a fifth set to get a result, having also gone the distance against Slovakia earlier in pool play.

Haak's Night for the Record Books

The story of the match, though, belongs to Isabelle Haak. Nicknamed the Queen of the North, the Swedish opposite put together a 52-point performance, including 14 points in the decider alone, breaking her own career high and setting a new record for the most points scored by a single player in a EuroVolley match.

The numbers behind that total are just as striking as the record itself. Haak converted 47 of 83 attacking attempts for a 57 percent hitting efficiency, and was stuffed at the net just once across the entire match, an extraordinarily low block-against rate for someone carrying that much offensive weight. She added two blocks and three aces to round out the box score, while committing only three errors on a workload most opposites would need several matches to accumulate.

Haak wasn't alone in the box score. Hanna Hellvig added 17 points and Anna Haak chipped in 11, giving Sweden the kind of secondary scoring punch it needed once the match tightened up in the closing sets.

What It Means Going Forward

For a Pool D that already looked lopsided at the top with Italy running through the group unbeaten, this result is a reminder that Sweden isn't just playing out the string as co-host. Three wins in, and a signature performance from its biggest star now on the record books, Sweden has given itself a real case for finishing above at least one of the group's other contenders when pool play wraps.

Croatia, meanwhile, will have to shake off a result that had the match firmly in hand through two sets before it slipped away, the kind of collapse that puts extra pressure on the remaining group games if Croatia wants to secure a top-four finish and advance to the knockout rounds.