The national team under-23 match against the USA collides with the rematch in the European Championship for the national team against Brazil.
Now the players are wondering what the league thinks.
It’s a very strange feeling, says Josephine Rybrink.
The women’s national team faces a record crowd in Tuesday’s European Championship rematch against Brazil at Friends Arena. 34,000 tickets were sold, so the previous audience record of 25,882 smokers worldwide is expected.
That match starts at 18.30.
Half an hour ago, the U23 national team took off against the USA.
Thus the largest and second largest national team compete with each other.
Yes, we responded to that and talked about it within the team. We think it’s very strange for matches to collide, says Haken defender Josephine Rebrink.
“Disappointed”
Their match against the USA is played on Vittsjö IP, starting at 18.00 and broadcast on Sportkanalen and C More.
Thus, the match of the national team against Brazil begins at 18.30 and is broadcast on SVT.
– We asked our coaches how it could be like this, but they didn’t know either. Many of us on the team are disappointed, says Josephine Rebrink.
“mystery”
Sportbladet first contacted the Swedish Football Association’s general secretary, Håkan Sjöstrand.
He referred to Yvonne Eckroth, the U23 national team manager, who in turn passed the question to Jürgen Larsson, the event director.
Explanation: This was the best of several bad choices.
– It’s a puzzle to be solved as you do with the respective national teams. In events, we cannot influence the choice of match day but only the kick-off time. The alternative was to play the US game in the early afternoon, but then it is difficult to attract the audience and find officials etc who can line up, Larson says.
Do you buy disappointment for players under 23 years old?
– Yes, that was unfortunate.
– Now it’s like we’re competing a little bit with ourselves and that’s of course not good. But unfortunately I can’t do anything about it now, and I couldn’t do anything about it before.