Damallsvenskan Newsblog

Sweden's early exit from the World Cup had the benefit that I could relax and just watch the games and read the stories. With the matches being aired during working hours (kick-off 11.00 and 14.00 in Sweden) I spent most evenings watching recordings and reruns and decided I really didn't need to do any reporting here. But I should of course have said something about Sweden's final match, so here it comes:

Sweden wins and fails

North Korea - Sweden 1 - 2 (1-1)
Sweden: Hedvig Lindahl (Linköping) - Anna Paulson (Umeå) [69 Sara Johansson (Hammarby)], Hanna Marklund (Sunnanå), Karolina Westberg (Umeå), Frida Östberg (Linköping) - Therese Sjögran (Malmö), Nilla Fischer (Malmö), Caroline Seger (Linköping) - Victoria Svensson (Djurgården) - Lotta Schelin (Göteborg), Hanna Ljungberg [40 Sara Thunebro (Djurgården), 89 Therese Lundin (Malmö)]
Goals: 0-1 Lotta Schelin (4), 1-1 Ri Un Suk (22), 1-2 Lotta Schelin (54)
Attendance: 33,196
It finished like Sweden's championship runs usually does - dejected players sitting and lying around, empty looks and tears. This time it was, unusually, after a victory. But 2-1 against the Korean team wasn't enough when a three goal win was needed to advance. On the bright side, the team pulled themselves together and made a decent performance. Lotta Schelin finally showed why she is a star in the Swedish league. Her second goal featured her trademark run through the defense, the way she has scored most of her 22 domestic goals this season. Therese Sjögran also finished with a great performance, making her one of the few Swedish players that has lived up to expectations. And Karolina Westberg finally got to start, even if this was the one game where I would have picked Stina Segerström. Sweden really needed to score and Stina has shown that she can to lethal on set pieces while Karro with 119 caps still has to get her first national team goal. Hanna Ljungberg's unlucky run-in with one of her teammates towards the end of the first half put her on the injury list once again (presumably for at least a couple of weeks) and might have affected Sweden's performance, but not that much.

Post-WWC talk: A failure but not a disaster

Players, coaches, journalists, fans, all seemed to agree that this was a failure. The result was a failure - even the modest among us talked about advancing from the group as a reasonable goal - and the performance on the pitch was also a failure. The team performed good against North Korea and in the first 30 minutes against USA, but apart from that not so much. So why is that? Competition is tougher, even from also-rans as Nigeria. Last WWC they got a 0-11 scoreline over 3 matches, this year it was 1-4 against the same three opponents. But it wasn't "those !#¤%! 15 minutes against Nigeria", as a redeyed Lotta Schelin put it, that decided Sweden's fate. The post-championship discussion focused on other things.

Injuries to key players before and during the tourmanent was of course brought forward, but also the view that this is what we will have to get used to. We had a head start in this sport, but now we have been caught up and big football nations like Brazil and England will only get better and will be followed by others. But most of the post-championship discussion was about things that could have been done different.

Coach Thomas Dennerby recieved a lot of critisism. The Olympic Committee repeated their old view that the team is not physically fit enough, which Dennerby responded to as untrue - Sweden did not lose points because the players were more tired than the other team - and an easy thing to comment on if you don't understand the finer points of the game. More common critisism was over Dennerby's preparations (sightseeing and shopping instead of serious match preparations), his sometimes dubious substitutions, his clinging on to the 4-3-3 tactics far to long, when the players that initially prompted this new set-up already had been lost to injuries, the lack of a really visible game-plan and, though this was mostly a tabloid view, being far too happy, content and optimistic during the tournament. There were demands that he should be released from his position as head coach. But the more knowledgable and sane critics had a different view. One of TV4's experts explained immideately efter the Korea match that Dennerby will not get fired: "That's not the way we do it in Sweden" and pointing to the the men's national team, where coaches has been allowed an initial failure and progressed to really successfull performances after that. And, as TV4's Malin Svedberg pointed out, it is his duty to keep up a good mood and show confidence in his team as long as there still are matches to play. Anything else would be letting the team down.
Two prominent club coaches has also commented. Sweden had, as they habitually do championship years, the annual Damallsvenskan coaches conference at the WWC location. Not everyone went to China, some of those because their coaching contracts will not be renewed, but Umeå's Andrée Jeglertz and Malmö's Jörgen Pettersson were two of them and both wrote articles on Sweden's performance afterwards. Jeglertz emphatically denied that the players were lacking in fitness or otherwise being unprepared for the championship. Instead he focused on the team's tactics. "If a team has a working game-plan it should be visible from the stands. I couldn't see any". He also saw this as a problem in all current Swedish women's national teams, from the seniors over the U21/23's and down to the teenage teams. His article, published at Umeå's website, got a lot of press, but Dennerby, pointed out by Jeglertz without his name being mentioned, refused to reply. "It doesn't deserve a comment" was his only comment. Malmö's Jörgen Pettersson, partly in reply to Jeglertz, didn't want to take part in any blame-game: "It seems like everybody tries to put the blame away from themselves" and stated that there were several points were improvement could be made, even suggesting giving in to the Olympic Committee's demands for more fitness tests and training.

Some concern has also been voiced for the future of the women's league in the wake of the World Cup failure, but few are really worried. The league has established itself on a high level, both in quality and in attention from fans, sponsors and media, and is a very attractive arena for world class players. Apart from the 21 players in the Swedish team, there were an additional 12 present Damallsvenskan players in the World Cup teams and another 9 Damallsvenskan alumni.

Sweden's Saturday flight for Tianjin, the venue for the last group match, was delayed 6 hours. This meant that the team missed one training session, but on the other hand, so did the Koreans too, who were booked on the same flight.

There were two Sunday training sessions, but Hanna Ljungberg, Lotta Schelin, Linda Forsberg rested from both while Victoria Svensson, Caroline Seger and Hedvig Lindahl only attended one.

For the Monday training session, the final rehearsal for the final group match, Caroline Seger was given a rest and it also looks like Linda Forsberg will be unable to play on Tuesday.

The Swedish management still has a hopeful view on the North Korea match. Tore Lennertsson, who has been responsible for scouting the Asians, doesn't think a three goal win is unrealistic. "They are less structured than USA. They have a great passing play, but there are moments when they are not quite as good."

Sweden - USA 0 - 2 (0-1)
Sweden: Hedvig Lindahl (Linköping) - Anna Paulson (Umeå), Hanna Marklund (Sunnanå), Stina Segerström (Kif Örebro) [81 Therese Lundin (MalmÖ)], Frida Östberg (Linköping) - Linda Forsberg (Djurgården), Caroline Seger (Linköping), Therese Sjögran (Malmö) [65 Nilla Fischer (Malmö)], Victoria Svensson (Djurgården) - Lotta Schelin (Göteborg), Hanna Ljungberg (Umeå)
Goals: 0-1 Abby Wambach (34 PK), 0-2 Abby Wambach (58)

Sweden started, as expected, with a 4-4-2 line-up, but coach Dennerby surprised by picking young almost-debutant Linda Forsberg for the fourth midfield position. And it worked pretty well in the beginning. The team managed to hold the ball on the American half of the field for more than a few passes, creating five corner-shots already in the first few minutes. But USA caught up already in the middle of the first half and after about half an hour Hedvig Lindahl misjudged a ball and put Stina Segerström in a position where she had to risk fouling Lori Chalupny inside the penalty area. The referee called the foul and Abby Wambach scored on the following penalty kick. Sweden started to look scared and the earlier fairly creative play changed into long-balling over the midfield. Abby Wambach scored 2-0 with a great finish from a Kristin Lilly pass 15 minutes into the second. Shortly after that Dennerby changed to a 4-3-3 and, towards the end of the match, something that looked like an attempt to play 4 attackers. Even a one-goal reduction of USA's win should have been valuable, but the Americans seemed much stronger and the difference increased during the match.

In the general comments after the match, there was total agreement that USA, not surprisingly, was the better team and that Sweden's chances to advance has turned from slim to almost non-existent. The team keeps up a brave face, even if Hanna Ljungberg admitted that they were dejected immediately after the match. Coach Dennerby insists that Sweden still has a good chance, one goal every thirty minutes against North Korea will do the job, a statement that earned him the nick-name Bagdad Bob in one of the tabloids.

SVT's commentator Thomas Wernersson points at three weaknesses in Sweden's play. The goalkeeping must be better. Hedvig Lindahl hasn't been her best, understandably after her long injury period, and this also spills over to the entire defense. The midfield plays to static, they win balls and pass them along, but they don't move forward. And the forwards must start scoring. The team create enough opportunities, but the finishing edge has been missing.

Caroline Jönsson in her Aftonbladet column comments on stand-in Hedvig Lindahl's mistake before the USA penalty kick and says that is the kind of misjudgements you can make when you lack in match training, but thinks Lindahl otherwise did a good job.

The Swedish Football Association's chairman Lars-Åke Lagrell said that Sweden's injuries before the World Cup decided the match before it was played. It is impossible for Sweden to defeat USA with anything less than our best: "They are so good, that we can't afford to play with our 12th choice player".

Stina Segerström was convinced her challenge on Chalupny was in the clear and couldn't believe her eyes when the referee pointed at the penalty point.

Therese Sjögran wasn't happy about being subbed out in the second half and several commentators agrees with her. "She was one of the few players that were still trying to play constructive by that time".

The player's frustration and disappointment after the draw against Nigeria was still evident on Wednesday, but now the focus has changed. Thursday's training was a closed set and there is rumoured to have been work on a new free-kick variation and on how to stop Abby Wambach. Team captain Victoria Svensson said the team is very eager to revenge themselves and are convinced that they have a good chance against USA.

Most of the talk has been on two topics. Will Sweden change to a 4-4-2 tactics against USA? There are several signs for that. Dennerby changed to the new 4-3-3 to cope with the loss of midfield engine Malin Moström and has used it consistently this season. But with the injuries to wing forwards like Josefine Öqvist and Frida Nordin, he has been forced to compromise and put a player like Therese Sjögran in a for her unnatural position on the outside. Playing 4-4-2 would also outnumber the American midfield, which is strong but not very speedy. And with 4-3-3 you often find yourself with only one player in the box, while 4-4-2 often gives you two targets to feed with passes. The Swedish coaches hasn't joined in this discussion at all, but since Dennerby usually isn't hard pressed to debate tactics his silence might be telling.

The other big topic has been Abby Wambach, the heart and soul of the American team according to coach Ryan. Swedish defenders aren't really fond of her style of playing: "She is both big and strong and shouldn't fall as easy as she does" comments Hanna Marklund, who thinks Wambach goes down when she choose to do so. Frida Östberg says Wambach is well known for taking a dive if you touch her and says she wouldn't award Wambach any fair play-prize. "But I wouldn't give myself one either", she said with a laugh.

And Nilla Fischer was back training with the team, so we'll probably see her on the field against USA.