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From the Stade de France to Samara. After two years behind and the elimination of the Irish group of Euro 2016, Sweden is 90 minutes from a place in the semifinals of the World Cup.
It is an extraordinary transformation, and it was carried out without a laborious period of introspection following their failure in France.
They had already planned the next stage before their departure for a tournament that was starting for them by a fortuitous draw thanks to a Ciaran Clark goal and which ended with two defeats against Italy and Belgium
. Hamren was already on his way. His successor, Janne Andersson, had been officially confirmed as the next boss two months before the Euros. The minute the Hamren team was eliminated, Andersson took over. It has constantly transformed into a coherent force that deserves respect from England.
The fact that he did it without Zlatan Ibrahimovic is impressive for the outside world, although it was acknowledged in Sweden that the country's biggest star would not have really fit into the game plan of Andersson.
Indeed, it joins the fall of Hamren. The major criticism of the former boss was his lack of certainty regarding the staff and Ibrahimovic's indulgence at the expense of finding the best form for the players at his disposal.
Weakened
When Lars Lagerback was a manager throughout the 2000s, Ibrahimovic's record for his country was somewhat erratic, but he was more willing to integrate the system than the manager wanted. Hamren's attempts to build a camp around Ibrahimovic have weakened the team, as has the individual ability of the charismatic attacker to come out of certain situations.
Andersson has a different mode of operation. He never worked abroad and was a junior league player in Sweden before climbing the ladder as a recognized manager for his discipline and his preference for a fairly stiff 4-4-2 formation.
However, his championship feats with IFK Norrkopping outsiders in 2015 improved his profile and he was recognized that he was a progressive coach with all angles covered. He had a strong backroom team, including a psychology consultant and experts in sports science, which he brought with him to the international organization. And it worked.
Andersson is unobtrusive in terms of public appearances and press conference behavior. The team comes first.
There is no doubt that they were underestimated at every stage, beating Holland in qualifying – where they also beat France, the group's winner – to eliminate Italy's play -offs. . And while they narrowly lost to Germany, they dominated Mexico to progress as group winners.
The absence of stars on the team sheet is the reason why they are underrated, but their defense gave little chance and their central striker Marcus Berg missed more chances than any other player of the tournament.
Andersson still plays a 4-4-2 formation, but he is well organized and focused on compressing the space available to the opponent.
But when they attack, it turns into something that was approaching a 3-5-2 with left-back Ludwig Augustinsson in a hurry to bombard ahead – he opened the scoring against Mexico.
Emil Forsberg of Red Bull Leipzig operates left but drifts to the inside when the team goes from the front to strengthen his midfield area.
Great things were expected of him in 2016, and he did not quite set the world on fire. He is undoubtedly the man of the team now, and came out of the shadow of Ibrahimovic and another retiree, Kim Kallstrom, to assume creative responsibility.
There are other reasons for the improvement of Sweden too. They won the U-21 European Championships in 2015, illustrating their strength at the miners' level, with an England team led by Gareth Southgate coming out of the group stages despite a victory over the Swedes through to a goal of Jesse Lingard.
Victor Lindelof, John Guidetti, Augustinsson, Oscar Hiljemark and Filip Helander belong to this group. There is also a lot of excitement about a generation that was born in 1999 and that includes Borussia Dortmund teenager striker, Alexander Isak, who did not really make the cut right here.
With confidence about the harvest for the future, the first feeling about the 2018 campaign was that it would focus as a bridge to an appropriate crack at Euro 2020. Instead, this group unknown is on the verge of greatness, and matching the efforts of the team that made the semifinals in the United States 24 years ago.
The mood was relaxed at the pre-game press conference yesterday. Captain Andreas Granqvist (below) was present, freshly informed that his wife had given birth to a girl overnight. She had asked that he stay to serve his country.
"Getting a girl is the most beautiful thing you can get," smiled Granqvist, who spent a lonely year in Wigan ten years ago.
One of his teammates was Kevin Kilbane, while the Irish international remembers the staff's concerns about the center-center's adequacy to the physical demands of English football, even though 39, he has 6 "4". He has just agreed to join Helsingborgs in Sweden after periods in Holland, Italy and Russia, which makes him a round player.
Andersson, who turns 56 later this year, has turned into nostalgic territory by talking about watching English football on television on Saturday. But otherwise, he returned to the same principles by discussing the strengths of his team.
Surprise
"There was a coach who said we were easy to analyze and hard enough to beat and I think it's a good description for us," he said. he says, words that eccentrically echo the description that the Danish coach made of Hareide last November ("easy to read and hard to beat")
difficult to have an idea of what we are doing, "he continued. "The surprise of what we do is that we are consistent, that people take us seriously – it's not for me to say." But we are very strong in our convictions and we have talked about it from the beginning two years ago. "
This mental strength was in evidence on Tuesday because they actually carried a Swiss side that ran out of ideas." I would not describe you as boring, "said Switzerland's Xherdan Shaqiri, addressing the Swedish press after the tour." But people at home may not like to look at you "
Opposition teams certainly do not like playing against them, Andersson was questioned yesterday if there was one factor that could prove the difference against England. 19659005] "Football is not so simple," he shrugged. "You can not identify a single factor. You look at the situation as a whole and evaluate various factors.
"Many things must be right: the defense must be right, you have to be brave in your own possession and the pre-established situations will be the key for the first time. we meet a country that looks more or less like us: everything must be fair, not a detail
"But we are consistent and the players know our idea of the game and our philosophy, and it is something that delights me We have a good thing to do. "
England will have to work extremely hard to stop their advance.
Irish Independent
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