My soul’s Swedish, but here’s why I’ll be cheering for England

By ULRIKA JONSSON

During a few agonising hours on Wednesday, with a Sweden game followed by an England match, i was reaching for beta-blockers to keep my blood pressure down and suffering more hot flushes than any menopausal woman should have to deal with in a lifetime.

if you lot think it’s been stressful watching England survive a penalty shoot- out, imagine being a passionate supporter of two nations fighting to survive in the World Cup. And then consider how it must feel when they go head to head in a sudden- death knockout match, as they will this afternoon.

As a Swedish expat who’s called Britain home for 39 years, i have a deep and abiding sense of loyalty to both countries.

My soul and my passport remain Swedish, and for that reason i am honour- bound by blood ( and meatballs) to support my country of origin today.

But then you can’t live in old Blighty without falling in love with its people, and that means falling in love with English football, too.

So today’s match will be a kind of glorious agony for me, knowing that one of my beloved countries is going to lose . . . and my dreams for one or the other will wither and die.

Perhaps the reason i feel so at home watching England play is because it’s not unlike watching Sweden — they’re both teams that traditionally don’t play with great fluency, are reluctant to believe in themselves, and are most definitely burdened by the past.

if you think England is weighed down by a lifetime of failing to repeat its 1966 World Cup win, spare a thought for poor old Sweden, who failed to qualify for the last two World Cups, and haven’t been in the final since 1958!

Football is definitely a big deal in Sweden, but the season is short because we’re not likely to be kicking a football around on a frozen pitch in January in temperatures of -23c.

But then Sweden is a land of extremes: no daylight in winter; no darkness in summer; a measured, sensible people who put practicality before everything yet, have a shocking propensity for downing shots of liquor and going, quite frankly, absolutely nuts.

We WEAr thousands of layers in winter, but cannot wait to go skinny dipping throughout the warmer months.

The Swedes may be a humane breed, but Viking instincts kick in when it comes to patriotism and sport. We can make quite a noise for a country that’s more than twice the size of the uK, but with a paltry population of only nine million.

And reaching the quarter-finals has

sparked a national outpouring of expectation that has set Sweden in a ferment — just like here in England.

There’s finally a feeling back home that Sweden is throwing caution to the wind.

The players are showing flashes of fervour and zeal — something i haven’t witnessed before, which makes me hopeful they can do something special. The same goes for England.

By having less established players this time around than the likes of Wayne rooney or rio Ferdinand, for example, manager gareth Southgate has sown the seeds of equality within the team.

Along with the new players have come the fresher other halves. Thankfully, the WAgs appear to have stayed largely out of the limelight. Apart from supporting their men at games, mostly wearing England shirts, they’ve been refreshingly low-key.

REBEKAhVArDY is by far the most famous of them, on account of having thrown her own hat into the reality show ring on TV last year, but apart from some online postings when she partied until sunrise, she’s stuck with the younger wives and girlfriends who have definitely not proved a tawdry distraction.

Yes, there are false eyelashes galore but none of them are as maddening as the Cheryl Coles and Coleen rooneys or Frank Lampard’s ex-girlfriend Elen rivas, who turned any tournament into something akin to a table-dancing competition.

This generation’s crop seems, like the team, mostly unassuming, and i say good riddance to the glitzy, glamorous WAg circus.

i think there’s one other significant change that gareth Southgate has made — which he must have noticed was lacking when he was an England player.

With the help of a female

psychologist, he’s instilled a strong mentality, a wilful mindset, that’s confident without being arrogant and passionate, too. it came across in the penalty shoot- out, and it’s a stupendous achievement.

Perhaps it has taken a relatively recent England player to become the man ager England needs.

After all, you’ve tried and failed with other nationalities, including the italian Fabio Capello, and of course a Swede who could have had great prospects if it hadn’t been for what the nation and the players saw as about as much passion as an ikea flatpack.

Was Sven secretly passionate? Search me!

no, England has finally got what it deserves in the formidable gareth Southgate and his tribe of warriors.

i shall be on tenterhooks this afternoon — doubtlessly chewing my way through a sofa (though not one from ikea) and pacing holes in the wooden floor.

i’m hoping to endure the match alongside my Swedish mother, English stepfather, and three of my children who, despite loving England, will be cheering for Sweden. So it’s bound to get very messy . . .

My soul might be willing a Viking victory, which would be marginally against the odds. (Please note, if Sweden do win, try to remember we did give you Abba, greto garbo, Volvo, the Minecraft video game — and a marvellous weather girl.)

But the truth is that my heart and my head will be urging England’s lions on to the semi-final.

i have, like the great English public, suffered too much heartache over too many years. i was there in the stands in France ’98 when you went out on penalties to Argentina, and i was utterly bereft.

The sense of positivity, hope and unity fuelling this country is something i never want to end. That’s why i really hope that football is finally coming home.