Pragmatic Swedes vow to make England sweat

Gerry Cox

While England’s supporters savour the satisfaction of ending their penalty hoodoo, a quite different test lies in store on Saturday in Samara.

Sweden’s progress to the quarter-finals of their first World Cup in 12 years has been relatively low-key, perhaps because the towering presence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic no longer overshadows Swedish football.

And that is just how Janne Andersson and his men like it.

Clearly sick of answering questions about the absence of Sweden’s most famous footballer, who retired from international action two years ago and has not had the recall he was expecting, his less than stellar countrymen are happier talking about team spirit, togetherness, and being hard to beat.

There is a no-nonsense realism about this current group of players, who have been quietly collecting the scalps of football’s traditional big beasts, and are hoping to add England to the list.

“We are not scared of anyone,” said goalkeeper Robin Olsen after they beat Switzerland 1-0 on Tuesday.

They also got the better of France in qualifying last year, beat Italy in the play-offs, won a group containing Germany and Mexico, and now face England, who have only won once in their past eight competitive meetings.

What makes them so hard to beat? A solid defence and direct counter-attacking, according to Xherdan Shaqiri, the Swiss midfielder. “They just stand back with big players in defence and try to play on the counter-attack.

“I don’t think they are going to change their football to tiki-taka against England. It’s going to be the same.”

Andersson’s players do not care what the outside world thinks of them, though, as defender Mikael Lustig admitted: “We’re not saying sorry to anyone because I think we earned a place in the last eight. We are defending with our lives and we create a lot of chances as well.”

Striker Ola Toivonen says his sole focus is on what Sweden do.

“I don’t care about other teams. I’m focused on us and that was the same through qualification, focusing on being a really good team.

“I don’t think anyone will want to play us. We’re an aggressive team, we trust our defence and create chances. We are frustrating for opponents.”

But Toivonen and Berg have hardly been prolific in Russia, with the latter having had the most shots on target without a goal — 13.

Harry Kane, by contrast, has scored with every one of his shots on target, six so far, which is the same as Sweden have managed between them so far.

As a striker, Toivonen is aware of the Tottenham man’s threat, much as he has not bothered to watch England so far. “To be honest, I haven’t seem much of England, just the goals. But they have Harry Kane and he is an amazing number nine.”

Kane had a bruising encounter with Colombia’s defenders in Moscow on Tuesday, and while there may be less wrestling from Andreas Granqvist and Co, there will be no less resolve to stop Kane.

As Lustig said: We’ve proved time after time, even when we play the big nations we find a way to win the game. This World Cup has been crazy so far so hopefully it will continue like that.”