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The Swedish men’s team is in a shady trend. On Wednesday they fell 3-0 at home to Portugal, who missed Cristiano Ronaldo (he tested positive for covid-19). Now Janne Andersson’s team has lost four consecutive competitive games.
Portugal started the match. He put Liverpool’s new acquisition Diogo Jota directly into a shot that went near a post, and in the fourth minute William Carvalho headed off the post behind a post by Joao Cancelo.
Then it was Sweden’s turn to burn down a giant position, after twelve minutes of play. Right-back Mikael Lustig hit the far post from a corner kick, received it and then shot over the crossbar.
In the 21st minute, Portugal went ahead. The home team played through the Swedish defense and after a pass from Diogo Jota, Bernardo Silva made it 1-0 in a corner. 14 minutes later, Sweden were not far from equalizing 1-1. Striker Marcus Berg fired a shot that was stopped off the post by Portuguese goalkeeper Rui Patricio.
When it seemed that Sweden would enter the break with 0-1 on the scoreboard, they were small again. A long post from the aforementioned Cancelo reached Jota, who received the ball and easily pushed 2-0 behind Robin Olsen. Neither Pontus Jansson nor Mikael Lustig managed to lift the striker. The Swedish field yelled offside, but referee Srdjan Jovanovic acquitted him.
In the second half, Sweden went for a reduction and ten minutes inside, Viktor Claesson, who started on the left in midfield in the absence of Emil Forsberg, came close to scoring. However, the referee was not impressed and admonished him to dive.
With 72 minutes played, Portugal completely dead in the match. Diogo Jota was then on the move again. The Liverpool player turned around down the left wing, burst into the center and scored 3-0 from close range. Thus he scored two goals and one assist.
Sweden have lost all four Nations League games so far. You are the last in your group and you risk getting out of Division A (high school division). Croatia, which is penultimate, has three points. Two rounds left. Sweden have Croatia (at home) and France (away) left to face, and must overtake Croatia to avoid falling out of the division.
– It’s heavy, of course. We didn’t want to go here and lose with big numbers, says Viktor Claesson on C More.
– It’s difficult when they counter us. We must be more careful not to drop the ball in the wrong places. And have some fluency too. If we put the ball in, the image of the game is completely different. They get the game where they want. We are reaching a good level, but that is not enough.
Portugal starting eleven: Rui Patricio – Joao Cancelo, Pepe, Ruben Dias, Raphael Guerreiro – William Carvalho, Bruno Fernandes, Danilo – Diogo Jota, Joao Felix, Bernardo Silva
Swedish team: Robin Olsen – Mikael Lustig (Mattias Johansson 54), Pontus Jansson, Victor Nilsson Lindelöf, Pierre Bengtsson – Dejan Kulusevski (Sebastian Larsson 88), Kristoffer Olsson, Albin Ekdal, Viktor Claesson – Robin Quaison (Alexander Isak 62), Marcus Berg (Martin Olsson )).
