Swede dreams not just made of Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Zlatan Ibrahimovic might be the name on everyone’s lips but the manager of Ireland’s first opponents at the European Championship finals insists that Sweden are not a one-man band.

“No, we have a team,” says Erik Hamren. “Zlatan is not playing alone, so we have a team and a team that is really strong and works hard together and lets our world- class player - being the scoring man as he is - the best scorer for us. But we have ten other players working really, really hard to make him successful.

“We have just one world-class player but you can do a lot with that too.” Assessing the make-up of Group E, Hamren observes: “It’s an exciting draw. We have Belgium who are the number one team in the world and a really exciting team. We have Italy, in my opinion a ranking one team and a team that is always good in the finals. Of course Belgium and Italy will be the favourites and then Ireland and us are the underdogs of course.”