Ukraine vs Sweden

davisjw

It's Keller, the old keeper. I think he played at Fulham for a bit.

I thought Ibra looked good when he had the ball, but off the play he literally stands like a statue even when the ball is around him. I expected Sweden to do better, but they always raise their game against us. Their defense was also shite. Melberg is alright, the others are stones buried in the ground. I'm protesting Ikea meatballs until the game is over.

Ukraine took me by surprise. They dictated the game at times and while Shev isn't the player he was, he's still the goal scorer he's always been. I think they'll give France a go, but over confidence will earn them a loss.

Devil may care

I have to say I enjoyed Shevechenko turning back the clock and having the Hollywood script night.

TheHorse'sMouth

Voronin looked a completely different man. Getting rid of the pornstar look has done him wonders.

7even

Well I didn't enjoy those "magic" moments.

Back to Swedens fiasco.

Again Toivonen as a leftmf/winger. Why o why?

kouroux

What was that Sweden defender thinking for the second Sheva goal ? Unprofessional to not stick to the post during a corner kick when you're just supposed to do that

Ballache

Sweden were not great, made Ukraine look better than they are. Their second goal was a disgrace, amateur defending.

Dobba

Yeah, can't believe he stopped the game when Ukraine were down to 10 due to injury, disallowing the Swedish goal...oh wait.

::sonny::

Congrats to ibrahimovic for his marking abilities.

Plechazunga

That Swedish bloke who was on the post for the second Ukraine goal, the one who looked a bit like a cavalier... he looked a decent player.

Grinner

:d

7even

Sweden is not a great football nation who produce top talents all the time. Zlatan is a exception and not the normality. Our strange is and has always been organization, discipline and hard work. A little bit like England. You can say that Sweden and Norway are similar in that department.

Our best result ever is a second place in WC 1958. Probably our best team ever with legends like Thomas Nordahl, Gunnar Gren, Nils Liedhom and Nacka Skoglund. All of them where top top players in Serie A and Nordahl is AC Milans best goalscorer ever.

Our second best result was WC 1994 when we finished third. The best summer ever in my life, all girls was available (for everything ) under those weeks when we where digging up gold (bronze) in the USA (The swedes know what I talking about). A fantastic generation with players like Jonas Thern, Stefan Schwartz, Klas "Skogshuggaren" Ingelsson, Martin Dahlin, Kenneth Anderson, Patrick Andersson, Roland Nilsson, Jocke Bjorklund and Tomas Brolin. We where magic that summer and I'm not sure I will ever witness such success again with Sweden.

Our third best period was 1974 and between 2002 -2006, the last one a team built by under rated manager Lars Lagerback (from my hometown) with players like Henke Larsson, Olof Mellberg Freddie Ljungberg and a young Zlatan.

Even if we had better players in previous teams our strange was the same. Disgusting discipline, old fashion Swedish organization and fucking hard ugly work, from first to last second. These are the corner stone's who our country is built on. Doesn't matter who's playing they all know what to do. Simple and boring but fucking effective.

Yesterday our new fancy manager Erik Hamrén forget about those three important things. He thought that we should dominate possession against the home nation in front of the Ukraine president and the puppet from UEFA Michel Platini. He thought that our first eleven including Marcus "who?" Rosenberg, Ola "Bandoola" Toivonen, Martin "Blackburn" Olsson, Michael " O" Lustigh (from my home town) and Andreas "Banderas" Granqvist should outplay Ukraine on their home turf. What a fucking joke!!!

We did everything wrong in the book. Over confident of our ability without any reasons. Cocky before the game but mental midgets under it. Instead of stepping forward the players, apart from Zlatan and maybe one or two more where shy, invisible and scared.

There is no excuses. None. Hands down and congrats to Ukraine. I hope we go back to our cave's and that we are a shamed for a couple of days. Back to ground and normality. Against England I expect us to do better. If we play to our strange and ability, including disgusting discipline, organization and fucking hard work we have a chance. This time it's England who are favorite's and maybe Hodgson is getting over confident, if so everything is possible.

Gio

Normally you stick your small creative types on the posts because they're too half-arsed to do a proper job of marking in the mixer. Too many see it as an opportunity to switch off for a few seconds.

Snow

I don't know but the Swedish public are trying to teach him what he should have done.

MrMarcello

That was horrendous marking of the post by the Swedish defender.

Nobby style

His massive jumbo golden sash weighed him down.

R.N7

For being a defender, Lustig has no redeeming defensive qualities

R.N7

I don't think we went above our station. We're a better team than Ukraine, there was just some bad cases of players not turning up (Källström, Seb), tactical mismanagement (Toivonen, Elm) and poor selections (Granqvist, Rosenberg).

You're giving Lagerbäck too much credit, when Söderberg left we stopped playing football and resorted to that turgid shit football for years. I'm sick of this constant need in this country to confine ourselves to "lagom", the average.

7even

You make some good points but let's not give the wrong impression. There's nothing wrong with "lagom", and I wouldn't translate it to average. It's more like take the middle way, to be moderate or chose the safest way. That's something good and the Swedes should be proud of ourselves that we are diplomatic and "lagom". More nations should take that approach and there would be less conflicts.

Regarding your criticism I totally agree regarding the team selection but we forget to play to our strange. That is Hamréns fault and he was blurry in his tactic to the players (according to reports), that's never good.

My little in stick about Lagerback was a dig at the Swedish journalist and pundits. We where playing five championship in row and suddenly everybody take it for granted that we belong to the football elite, nothing are more far away from the truth. Let's appreciate what Söderbergh and Lagerbäck did and with hindsight it was a fantastic achievement.

Against good old England we have to go back to basic and do it the right way. It's easy to laugh at players like Hakan Mild and Tobias Linderoth but they epitomize our soul and heart. We need hard workers and Sebastian Larsson and Johan Elmander are not flashy but you know what you get. You spice this with the magic that Zlatan can give us and we are always a threat.