Considering this match's importance for the US (and the fact that I'm up and watching), why not a PBP thread. Will be interesting to see if Sweden deals with NK better than we did.
After 5 minutes it looked like Sweden were going to dominate. Now, in the 23rd, NK has found their legs and begun to give the Swedes a lot of trouble. Not much goal mouth activity as yet, though.
About damn time. Sweden finally score. Cross into the box, nice volley across goal, Blond #17 settles and smashes into the goal.
Wow - NK almost equalized. Header off a corner is cleared off the line by a Swedish defender. NK is gonna get another chance or two, no doubt.
And it's over. NK never did get another chance. Sweden have two wins despite not playing very well. Their forwards have been especially poor - but they're into the knockout round, so I suppose they'll be happy.
Left over from the first half? Never understood that approach, but some refs seem to make it a policy.
Their forwards do everything right except just put it in the back of the net... which is an important part of being a forward, albeit not the only one. I only caught the last 25 minutes (just after the goal, doh!) but it didn't seem like it was that great of a game. Still, Sweden must be happy with two wins down now, despite not playing at their best.
Sweden have some nice build up play but it goes all for naught in front of goal. They need to sort that out if they want challenge for the title. They are a neat playing side though.
The problem is that then cooperation between Schellin and Jessica Landström doesn't work well. L8 need another type of player beside her. things seemed to work out better when Landström was replaced by Josefine Öqvist. And Sweden's special "ball hit coach" Ejia Fedoroff, have som work to do.
Yes, Landström should not play, she's relatively large but has absolutely no skill. Forsberg looks quite useless and should also not play, but i'm pretty sure no one would expect Dennerby to actually change the starting 11. They'll lose the quarterfinal to Brazil, Dennerby will say that he's happy with the performance since they won two group matches and Brazil is a good team, even though the team looked absolutely awful in all of the 4 matches. And he probably won't be fired. Swedish national teams of both genders are nothing if not predictable.
Exactly. Have you ever seen a segment at the end of the 1st half that has more stoppage time added than a segment at the end of the 2nd half? I know I haven't. I've seen matches where 4 or 5 injuries happen in the 1st half, and no injuries at all in the 2nd half, with one minute of stoppage time at the end of the 1st half, and 3 or 4 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the 2nd half. It's just bizarre.
Josefine Öqvist is #1 on this list. Congrats Josefine ............ http://guyism.com/sports/sexiest-players-of-fifa-womens-world-cup-2011.html