Sheffield. Five years have passed since Peter Gerhardsson took over the Swedish national team.
Confidence in the national team captain is high ahead of the EC semi-final, according to Magdalena Ericsson.
– We’re like his soldiers in a way. She says we are ready for this battle.
Coming to the question of whether Magdalena Eriksson prefers a three- or four-street against England, she thinks her opinion doesn’t matter much.
– I prefer nothing. I will do what Peter wants me to do because he decides. The central defender says he always has a good rationale for how he chooses to play.
Eriksson likened this to soldiers who were ready to go into battle and would do everything in their power to win.
– If he plays with three defenses or fours, I don’t think it matters much. “I think it’s more about the mentality we have in the game,” she says.
In a similar way, goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl previously described the captain of the national team:
– (Gerhardson) and Magnus (Wakeman, assistant) were very confident in their idea. We sometimes interrogated a few things internally and they gave us good explanations of why they wanted to do things their way and we bought into their idea and stuck with it for many years.
Aslani: “a special feeling”
Bramall Lane will be filled to the brim with mainly English fans (plus about 1,250 brave Swedes).
Experienced Kosovar Aslani, who made his first European Championship in 2009, is looking forward to the meeting.
– Personally, it means a lot, but also to the whole team. We play in the EC semi-final against the home team, Aslani says and recalls other similar evenings with the national team.
Like Brazil in the Maracanã, a stadium three times as big as this one. It’s a special feeling to walk into an arena full of home fans and we’ll do everything. We’re more than ready for tomorrow, I don’t know if you can get any more excited.
England captain Sarina Wegmann, who knocked out Sweden with the Netherlands in both the 2017 European Championship and the 2019 World Cup, expects an equal match.
– They have done well in recent years and for a long time in women’s football. Wegmann points out that they are ranked second in the FIFA rankings.
It will be a tough match, very different from the one we played against Spain because they play a little differently.
Kosovar Aslani is ready for what it takes to secure a place in the finals:
If we follow the game plan and get to where we want to go, we have very good chances.