England fortunate to weather Swedish storm
Going into this match, England had not beaten Sweden since 1968. They still haven’t and had a very lucky escape. England’s much vaunted defence showed its weakness at set pieces, surprising given that this is the basis of Englsih football.
In the first half England were the slightly better team, but again lacked creativity. They suffered an early blow when Owen had to go off with what looked like a serious knee injury. He was replaced by Peter Crouch, that poor excuse for a footballer, who again did little but knock the ball down to other (usually Swedish) players. Rooney had a half chance, taking Beckham’s pass well but his shot was blocked by Lucic. Despite their possession, England created very little and it took a fantastic dipping volley by Joe Cole, England’s best player to give them the lead.
It was all change in the second half, as Sweden took control. Allback’s header, the 2,000th goal in World Cup finals, from Linderoth’s corner made it 1-1 and from then Sweden looked like scoring every time they had a corner. First, Robinson pulled off a great save to deflect Larsson’s header onto the bar from Kallstom’s corner. Then Gerrard cleared Kallstrom’s volley off the line and finally Mellberg hit the bar too - both these chances also coming from corners. Gerrard’s header gave England an undeserved lead in the 85th minute, before a throw-in from Edman caused confusion in the box and Larsson took advantage of Campbell’s failed attempt at a clearance to make it 2-2.
Sweden will now play Germany after Paraguay beat T&T 2-0 and should give them a good game. England face Ecuador. Their “40 years of hurt” look likely to continue.
