Dublin clash not a must-win for Sweden, claims Bhoy Lustig
Celtic’s Swedish defender left Lansdowne Road with a 1-0 win over Liverpool on Saturday, but he has claimed that his national team don’t need to beat Giovanni Trapattoni’s side in September to keep alive their World Cup play-off hopes.
The Swedes will target victory, but Lustig believes they will be in control of their destiny by simply avoiding defeat.
“It’s going to be a massive game if you’re going to go to the World Cup by the play-offs, and we can’t lose the game,” he said, before adding: “A draw we can take because we have Austria at home.
“We’ve still got it in our hands. We’ve got Austria at home and Germany at home as well.
“Of course, we want three points and if we take three points our chances will look decent, while if we lost, it will not be so good for us.
“We know it’s going to be us, Austria and Ireland going for the play-off. We are heading into the important games now. A draw would be quite a good result for us here but of course we want to win.”
Germany have a foot in Brazil already as the runaway leaders of Group C, with 16 points from six games and the only unbeaten record in the pool.
Austria, Sweden and Ireland lag behind, tied on 11 points, but with all three still believing they can book the play-off spot.
Sweden were initially seen as Ireland’s main threat for the runners-up place, but Erik Hamren’s men lost 2-1 to Austria in Vienna in June, three months after Marcel Koller’s men snatched a late draw in Dublin. Austria have three games on the road remaining, with Ireland’s visit to Vienna next month a potentially crucial clash, while Sweden must travel to Dublin and Kazakhstan before finishing up with Austria and Germany.
Right now, it’s anyone’s guess which of the trio will be second when qualification ends in October, and Lustig admits he and his team mates must up their game if they are to continue the country’s impressive record of qualifying for major tournaments.
“First of all, we need to find our style of play. We have not played well for a long, long time,” he admitted.
“But I think we are expected to qualify. We’ve quite a good history in reaching big tournaments.
“We need to step up a bit. We haven’t played the football we know we can.”
Sweden have failed to impress since their rousing second half comeback in Berlin last October, where they drew 4-4 having trailed by four goals at one stage.
Since then, they’ve drawn with Ireland, edged past the Faroe Islands at home, and lost to Austria, a team that surprised Lustig.
“Yes, a little bit,” he admitted, “But when you look at their starting XI, a lot of their players are in the Bundesliga, one of the world’s strongest leagues.
“I can understand that people outside [Austria] don’t have so much awareness of them but it’s an achievement to have so many players in the Bundesliga.”
Ireland are a mix of mid-to-lower level Premier League and Championship players, and Lustig was not so impressed by what Trap’s men offered in the scoreless draw in Stockholm in March.
“I don’t think they will play tika-taka football when we come here,” he said, with a hint of sarcasm.
“It was a really poor game. Especially because we played at home. We knew it was a real important game.
“I think Ireland made it really hard for us. We created one big chance, in the last minute but Ireland didn’t create many chances either against us.
“Hopefully now this will be better. I mean Ireland are at home and it is the same for them as us, they need to win.”
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