Team Sweden

Why wasn't she not playing? Presumably she wasn't not playing because her coach thought that she ought not to not play. And... I'll just stop with that silliness now before I confuse myself horribly.

She was playing. I thought she did one or two potentially useful things, really, like hold the ball decently and make some nice runs in which she appeared out of nowhere. I'm not surprised if these things are not in the highlights, though, because she didn't get much support and it amounted to nothing.

flax is also right – passing to her teammates would have been nice too. It's hardly fair to single out Jakobsson for these things though – these things could be said of the team as a whole. I do remember there being quite a few plays in which they managed to string some large number of passes together, and those passes were rather precise even over long distances. But they happened mostly in the mid-midfield, in the absence of any real pressure.

 

I second the vote for the beehive! She'll look just like a member of the B-52s. I think the idea for the Goalie Tether (or would Keeper Keeper be a better brand name?) has lots of potential, but will require a little B&D R&D. Chains might lead to chafing. Or so I've heard.

law10, I don't think anybody's disagreeing with the premise that keepers need to come off their line and even charge out sometimes. Heck, I know of a short-arse keeper or two for whom it could be fairly said that charging off the line was their one and only worthwhile skill. *cough*

What we're saying is that this one particular goalkeeper has a problem with 1. showing good judgement about when to come off her line, and 2. knowing how to find it again once she's wandered off. We have literally years of observations and heartbreak backing us up on this.

Take a look, for example, at Switzerland's second goal (I think it's the second), the one where the Rohlin ran along side her mark the goalscorer for many meters, right up the middle, but didn't even give her player a nudge (but that's a whole 'nother topic). You could see from the camera behind the keeper that Lindahl was standing like two meters to the right of the center of the goal line. When she dove at the shot, she almost had it – she would have had it if she'd been just half a step to the left. (I'm all for the tactic of showing the forward the side you want them to shoot at, but then you better be able to cover that extra space.)

Even though this is the Team Sweden thread, I guess we could also credit Switzerland for winning the game by, you know, taking advantage of its chances. Like we wish Sweden would do.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, Denmark. Usch. Word on the Tweet is that Thunebro will be starting; we'll see how that goes.

 

The game versus Denmark is underway, and we've been reminded that a birthday girl in on the field: Therese Sjögran is 38 today! and she's even been offside once already.

 

1-0 thanks to Schelin in the 30-somethingeth minute. Sjögran still has a mighty pretty corner kick service. ooo, and she even could have scored there, pretty open goal but she sent it wide.

 

2-2 now, and it's nice and all, but something's wrong when your 38 year old is one of the bright spots instead of just an intriguing novelty, a human interest story.

 

Oj, kids! Please stop getting hurt! Both Jakobsson and Folkesson now out, which is not worth the 3-2 score. Jakobsson appears to have broken her elbow; Folkesson, something with the knee. damn!

 

The final score, 3-3 after a Danish penalty kick. Defender Berglund apparently took 'the Rohlin lesson' from the Switzerland game to heart, and wrestled her player to the ground rather than let her get by. Still, someone should tell her she ought not do that inside of the funny white lines near her own goal.

It's not sounding good for Folkesson, but none of the tv creatures are talking. Jakobsson's injury was extremely painful but, it sounds, probably not as serious as Folkesson's. Not that that means she'll be necessarily available for the WWC.

I wish I had been recording, because the footage of Lindahl doing a chimp-face grimace at the goal cam at the end was pretty funny. No coaches for Sweden looked pleased in the least. Schelin gave a pretty bouncy post-game interview (she had after all scored twice) but Sundhage and Seger (scored one) were more dire, and even dour at times (though I think one of the interviewers was asking some stupid questions which were irritating them).

Here's the highlights; it says it's not geoblocked.

On reflection, Fischer has not had a good couple of games. She's out of position for Denmark's first goal (a well-struck and well-aimed header); she partially blocks the shot that turns into Denmark's second goal, and her knee or whatever turns what might have potentially been a save-able shot into one of those unpredictable loopy things.

 

Completely tore it, and slightly tore a meniscus too, if I understand correctly. Usch, poor thing.

 

Today is a very important birthday: Pippilotta Viktualia Rullgardina Krusmynta Efraimsdotter Långstrump is 70 today! Ja må hon leva, osv. Wish she was interested in playing football for Team Sweden, heaven knows they could use her.

Therese Sjögran turned 38 recently, more than half as old as Pippi Longstocking. Heavens, she could reasonably be Pippi's daughter.

 

Shocking!

Has Team Sweden come up with an inspirational song this year? Because if anyone in this tournament is dancing with demons in their minds, it's them. (I personally found little cartoon dudes to be alarming when multiplied to a small army marching in lock-step, though it wasn't very nice of Måns to then blow them to pieces with the fiery red power of his heart.)

(a link for anyone who might be wondering what the hell I'm talking about)