The Assist of the Century (Sweden v Canada) is my favorite single offensive play ever. Victoria Svensson's quick-restart of a dead ball to Malin Moström, absolutely brilliant. I was so moved I wrote a doggerel verse about it more than a decade ago at these very boards in settlement of a bet; the key lines (including more names for us oldies) are these: "Then Hooper fouled Ljungberg, to the wonderment of all, And the referee in wisdom let our Vickan keep the ball; And in that perfect moment, just right when the whistle blew There ran Malin Moström, shrieking for a pass straight through Our Vickan put the ball right down, and sent a lovely pass That caught each lazy defender with thumb jammed up her ass It passed the cagey Nonen, and it passed the stalwart Hoop As Moström, mighty midfielder, upon the ball did swoop She took the time to aim her shot, and lined it up with care The Nike-pleather-covered sphere went curving through the air She went near-post on Swiatek, a most unpleasant route "Have that for thine instruction, hosers!" I was heard to shout." I'm not sure how I feel about the way I found this, which was to search myself for the word "pleather" but nevermind Let's hope for more saga-level heroics from Team Sweden today! Oh dear, I'm getting excited and hopeful. This is no good.
The long-ball-to-Malin Moström-outrunning-everybody-straight-down-the-middle-from-mid-field play was always exciting. same. Can only spell doom
I know, right? The only thing that would have been better about the middle-of-the-night start was that we'd all (in this time zone) have a been too zonked to care so deeply. As it is, we're going to be wide awake and will therefore feel the full brunt of the crushing disappointment.
Ok, I'll come out with my desperate newbieness (is it even a word?): I never watched that game, so I have no idea of what an Assist of the Century looks like. Any hope of a video showing it?
Found an UEFA page with links to videos, but only to goals in the Euro, of course, not in the Canada match they only mentoned for context
Off to bed. Here's hoping Sweden scores many and the Canucks get zilch. (And if I just *happen* to get up in the middle of the night and check the score, thus causing a Canadian goal -- my bad.)
i will see if I can't dig it up after today's excitement is over. It is a thing of beauty that should be shared widely. (Of course, I may be slightly biased. [I don't think there is an emoji with enough eye roll to cover that admission, but if there were, it should be inserted here.])
"de måste njuta men inte vara nöjda", säger Dahlqvist. It's a little disconcerting that they keep cutting back to the horse hopping during the pre-game, but Sweden's got a chance there too this morning, so... we must all share... It's also a little uncomfortable to sit here and know that I will be either ecstatic or the opposite of that in a couple hours.
Blackstenius, Blackstenius Är roliga att se... Later edit: Now at halftime, they are back to showing horse hopping. Which is just as well, to give us all something else to think about. They also a show the inside of a school that has decorated itself with a football scarf and hand-made kids things encouraging the football team on, and the talking head doing the piece reports all the kids are watching the match. "Isn't it still summer vacation?", wonders another talking head.
UNT was ready with its wrap up, and here's the end of it: A comfort is that I can't imagine that anyone* in Sweden will act the way that a certain country's fans acted after its men's team lost on penalties in a recent large Europe-based tournament. * "anyone", sure -- I imagine there will be a couple horrible people because there always are, but not so many, I hope/think.
Life in a small town: a front-page, banner headline from the local paper was that due to someone's renovations, the electricity got cut off to 100 households and they couldn't see the Olympic final:
I honestly have no idea what anyone's plans are, though I imagine there will be plenty of speculation about that to read over the next few days (if I can stomach it). I expect that any player for Team Sweden who is asked right now will say that they never want to see a football again. (Or [cough] perhaps I'm projecting a little.)
Condolences to Sweden and their fans. I did watch the ETs and the PKs. I would say it was my jinx that got them, but I feel like PKs are beyond even my bad luck and, I mean, Sweden HAD IT and then ... Seger. My heart broke for her. And I don't think it's ever broken for a Swede before. Props to the whole team though, including Lindahl.
It's kind of nice, though, on The Day After, to not have anyone else to blame. Team Sweden didn't put away some chances; they committed an entirely unnecessary foul that gave away a PK (Sinclair maybe exaggerated her fall a bit, but there's no doubt that she was in fact hit from behind); they didn't do so hot in their own PKs (to, err, put it mildly). I'm not sure that Canada played brilliantly, but they did what was required, clearly, and Sweden did not. I am disappointed of course that big names (and big talkers) Asllani and Seger muffed their PKs, but the only person that I am miffed at today is Labbé -- who I liked okay before this -- but who did not behave entirely honorably during the PKs (within the rules, yes -- I've read elsewhere she was close to getting a warning for the taunting, but this is simply (literally? ) not enough to cry foul over). Too bad Dahlqvist wasn't around to give her the icy-cold treatment that she was so good at giving Solo. (For some reason, I am very relieved that Schough made her penalty, and Björn the local too.)
This is interesting, because I'll admit that I don't know what the rules exactly say. Is there an exact and well defined limit for taunting the opponent players before a penalty? If so, I have to suppose that Bruce Grobbelaar had gone well beyond that in the famous final match of the 1984 European Cup between Liverpool and Roma.
Aftonbladet round-up 1. Here's an interview with Labbé. "Stephanie Labbé psychs out the opposition", more or less. (Dahlqvist agrees with me that this sort of behavior is "super-irritating" but also legal. Didn't know she even thought it was irritating -- I remember her laughing at Solo's antics.) 2. Sinclair, being a class act, has nothing but praise for Team Sweden and Seger in particular. I had forgotten that they played together back in the day, and were even roommates. 3. "It was brutal," says Seger herself. 4. Gerhardsson doesn't care that Dahlqivst questioned the order of PK takers. Not terribly surprising. 5. A story and video interview with Lindahl, who also agrees that they have no one to blame but themselves. 6. Asllani: "Last time it felt like we won the silver, this time it feels like we lost the gold." (and also, "I am so danged tired of having an effing silver medal", which did make me giggle a little) I'm not sure, honestly, so I guess some research is required. I'm pretty sure though that one is not supposed to stand half-way to the spot for a long time (facial expression would probably be too hard to regulate -- how does one describe "smirking with intent"?).