Even if the game could hardly be expected to be played at the soaring pace of Saturday’s, the lads (in a similar line-up, but with Rosenberg replacing the suspended Elmander) started brightly enough and after having controlled most of the play took the lead after 9 minutes. An ambitious shot from midfield by Linderoth, who advanced unchallenged with an ocean of space around him, was blocked by Arason only to be picked up again by Sweden. Wilhelmsson fed the ball to Allbäck, who chipped it into goal. Iceland responded by putting ten men behind the ball and while Sweden retained much of the possession, they increasingly found it difficult to get anywhere. On 37 minutes Iceland decided to open up and push forward after all; mainly inspired by Spurs reserve Emil Hallfredson, who was one of Iceland’s better players until substituted. His great strike was cleared by Nilsson – Gunnarsson then tested Isaksson. Minutes later Sweden increased the lead, Svensson took a shot from a corner kick.
Iceland, unsettled, soon lapsed in concentration and let the Swedes grab a third before half-time. Lovely work from Wilhelmsson and Alexandersson (a great right wing partnership throughout) allowed the latter to lift a ball over the Iceland defence; it found Mellberg who coolly finished with a right-foot volley. It became the decisive goal, which set the Swedish mood to triumphant and daring and the Icelandic to tired and dejected. Sweden after the break were displaying a lot more creativity, taking chances and, it seemed, having fun. A few minutes into the second half, Rosenberg, just onside, got the ball and made a solo run followed by a nice but narrow finish: the ball hit the post and went into goal.
The final nail in the Icelandic coffin came on 50 minutes, when the Swedish players appealed for a handball penalty, were not given one and everybody seemed unsure what was going on. The referee, Alain Hamer, our old favourite from the first Sevilla game, added to his reputation in my book as strange by confusing absolutely everyone. An Icelandic player seemed to pass the ball back to the goalkeeper (in the belief that it had been deemed a goal kick?), it was intercepted by Rosenberg who played around with it and passed it to Allbäck. Allbäck in turn shot it into goal, the goalkeeper watching him do it as the ball was thought to be out of play. Or something. Everybody was flabbergasted to find that the goal counted. The ball had never been out of play at all.
And that was it, Iceland gave up and the rest of the game saw a lot of substitutions which reflected that the game, essentially, was over. Zlatan Ibrahimovic came on for the final 20 minutes or so, but despite the apparent delight of the crowd and the odd little move he failed to add any more gloss on the evening. The best creative moves still came from Alexandersson and Wilhelmsson and crowd and country at that point were just quite happy with anything that happened on the field. The three points had been in the bag for a while. On Friday UEFA awarded the win over Denmark as 3-0 and Sweden now sit happily at the top of group F, three points clear of Spain.
Sweden
Andreas Isaksson, Niclas Alexandersson, Olof Mellberg, Petter Hansson, Mikael Nilsson, Christian Wilhelmsson, Tobias Linderoth, Anders Svensson, Fredrik Ljungberg, Markus Rosenberg, Marcus Allbäck
Substitutes: Rami Shaaban, Max von Schlebrügge, Daniel Majstorovic, Daniel Andersson, Kennedy Bakircioglü, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Rade Prica
Goals: Allbäck (11), Svensson (42), Mellberg (45), Rosenberg (50), Allbäck (51)
Iceland
Árni Arason, Grétar Steinsson, Gunnar Thor Gunnarsson, Ólafur Örn Bjarnason, Ivar Ingimarsson, Theodor Bjarnason, Arnar Vidarsson, Emil Hallfredsson, Brynjar Gunnarsson, Hannes Sigurdsson, Birkir Saevarsson
Substitutes: Dadi Lárusson, Kristján Sigurdsson, Stefán Gíslason, Hjalmar Jonsson, Ragnar Sigurdsson, Matthias Gudmundsson, Veigar Páll Gunnarsson
Referee: Alain Hamer (Luxemburg)
No comments:
Post a Comment