Andy Potts

KRYLATSKOYE, Moscow Region - Before the match, Vitaly was in no doubt about the outcome: "Of course Russia will win - this is a real Russian sport."

Unlike the more popular ice hockey, bandy, or "hockey-with-a-ball" as the Russians call it, has been played in Russia since the 18th century. Conoisseurs, such as Vitaly, a committed fan of Ulyanovsk-based Volga, treat the parvenu puck game - which first faced off here in 1946 - with some disdain.

"Bandy is more skillful: you need to control the ball, control your stick," he said on the bus heading to the game. "You can't just skate into someone and knock him over, you have to win the ball from him cleanly."

In effect the game resembles field hockey played on ice. Teams of 11 use sticks with long, curved blades to propel a bright orange ball around a rink the size of a football field. A low fence down the sides keeps the ball in play, but unlike ice hockey it's impossible to go behind the goals.

And Russia is pretty good at it, albeit against little serious competition outside of Scandinavia. The team romped through the group stage without defeat, thumping in 64 goals in five games and included a 7-4 win over finalists Sweden for good measure.

That strong form wasn't quite enough in the final, though, as Sweden strained to contain Russia's rampant attack and exploited the hosts' defensive frailties to grab a dramatic sudden-death win.

The decisive goal came 19 minutes into extra time, and deservedly involved the two stars of the Swedish side. Hat-trick hero Patrik Nilsson turned provider for Daniel Mossberg to break home hearts - and leave Vitaly cursing his team's luck.

In truth Sweden thought they had won it in normal time - Nilsson's penalty shot after Alexander Tyukavin's clumsy trip put them 5-4 up on 87, but deep into stoppage time a corner was only half-cleared and Pavel Ryanantsov squeezed home a dramatic equaliser.

Vitaly's confidence had seemed a little misplaced as the visitors opened up a 2-0 lead inside 20 minutes: Daniel Anderson converting Mossberg's cross on seven minutes before Patrik Nilsson swept home from a corner on 17.

Russia got one back through Yury Pogrebnoy, but were unfortunate that their best piece of hockey was rendered fruitless by a marginal line call as skipper Mikhail Sveshnikov produced all of that stickwork treasured by fans to wriggle his way down the flank, along the byline and cut back to crash an unstoppable shot home - only for the officials to rule that the ball had crept out of play.

Minutes later Mossberg set up Johan Andersson to make it 3-1, and it seemed that Russia were drifting to defeat.

The fightback started before half-time through Sergei Lomanov. While Nilsson's second of the game disrupted Russia's progress after the interval, they continued to dominate play and were looking the more likely winners when goals from Lomanov and Ivan Maximov pulled the scores level at 4-4. But that was before the breathless finale that broke Russian hearts.