SWEDEN BETTER WITHOUT ZLATAN?
No star names but they’re humble and play for each other. So are…
IN the interview area beneath the St Petersburg Stadium, Swedish midfielder Viktor Claesson was asked the question, the Zlatan question. If you are Swedish and you play football, the Zlatan question always arrives eventually.
‘Are you a better team without him?’ Claesson was asked in the wake of his team’s 1-0 victory over Switzerland. ‘Well, it was a long time ago that he retired so we don’t pay attention to that talk,’ said Claesson. ‘I didn’t even play in that team so for me it doesn’t matter. He can just keep on talking but I think he will be happy for us now.’
That last point is debatable. During his 15 years with the Sweden team, Zlatan Ibrahimovic (right) never made it past the World Cup’s last 16. Twice they did not even qualify for the finals.
So if the 36-year-old’s recent suggestion that Janne Andersson’s side would be better served with him in it sounded a little desperate maybe it was. For it seems that though Zlatan has not managed to quite forget about Sweden, Sweden may be on the verge of forgetting about him, at least for the time being.
‘It’s better to focus on the ones who did a great job here to make it to the quarter-finals,’ Claesson added. ‘It’s fantastic. It’s better to talk about these players. ‘We are a team and not individuals. It’s perfect for us and for Sweden the country. I think we like this. We are underdogs and a team together. It’s perfect.’ Sweden’s last-eight opponents on Saturday in Samara will be England. The Scandinavians are happy to be second favourites but are in no mood to be patronised. Aware that the English are already talking about a first World Cup semi- final since 1990, the Swedes are not impressed. Hakan Mild, the former Wimbledon midfielder and now IFK Gothenburg sporting director said on Swedish radio: ‘They think they are so good but they are not. They are just spoilt young people who make a lot of money. ‘The English are easy to score against. They don’t scare you and that suits Sweden well. They don’t have the total desperation required and have just played a long, tough game with extra time. ‘I also think they have a little bit of hubris. They think they are going to win and they will get an unpleasant surprise on Saturday.’
Nobody in the current Sweden team has the appetite to tweak English tails too much before the game. The closest anybody came after the win over Switzerland was captain Andreas Granqvist who said: ‘Someone said something about 99 times out of 100 they would beat us? Well, it’s fun for England to have that sort of confidence. Let’s play the game and see how things go.’
This understated approach to what is a huge game fits with what we know of this Swedish squad. In the Zlatan years, he was very much captain and leader. On occasion he pretty much picked the team.
Now the closest this humble, grounded bunch of players have to a superstar is defender Victor Lindelof and that is purely because he plays — occasionally — for Manchester United.
Interestingly, Lindelof is said to have brought a touch of Premier League aloofness to Andersson’s squad and it has been noted by the Swedish media with disapproval.
In terms of talent, the star of the show is undoubtedly 26-year- old Emil Forsberg, the winger who scored Sweden’s goal against the Swiss on Tuesday. Forsberg plays for RB Leipzig in Germany and is another unassuming individual.
With self- deprecation, Claesson said: ‘He is good technically and not like other Swedish players. He is a good asset. The rest of us are physical and solid but he has extraordinary skills. He is humble and works for the team. He is not a star player like other big players here in Russia but he is the star player for us.’
In terms of their football, Sweden have produced nothing in Russia to scare England but then they will not view tapes of the English games with any great trepidation either.
Andersson’s team will expect to spend a lot of time without the ball in the heat of Samara but are more than comfortable with that idea.
‘It is difficult to play against us because we defend very well and it’s hard to find spaces between the lines,’ said Lindelof.
‘There will be no space for England out there. We defend very well. All 11 players on the pitch understand that so it’s difficult for teams to score goals against us.’
The Swedes have already travelled further than they expected so for them this game represents a free hit. That could make them dangerous.
What Zlatan makes of it, nobody really knows. But he did hint at a return as recently as April so if there is any regret it could be that it belongs to him.
Lindelof was asked how old he would be before people stopped asking him about his former United team- mate. ‘ I don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘Maybe about 95...’