Sorry for the mess we’re rebuilding.
Excuses are certainly there.
You could only feel better if there was a hint of a football team as well.
You can imagine what it looked like in the office:
– There was such a buzz around 4-4-2, should we change?
– of course not. But perhaps giving Ludd a new nickname? Like when they renamed the cleaners?
– You mean he’s a midfielder? brilliant.
So it had to be. On a Serbian stencil, Sweden played 3-4-3, but the difference in fact was no greater than that of the offensive starting positions that were written on that sheet. Reality is what it is, it doesn’t matter what we call it. And the reality this fall is that Sweden has a national football team that has begged to its knees for “patience in the process”, which has set a “time period” until March 2023 and the European Championship qualifiers before the renewal are. Been completed. Sweden has a national football team where half of the entire main defense and security line are injured, benched or resigned.
Everything went wrong
When Jan Anderson And Peter Wettergren took the helm of this team six years ago, they had to build with solid pieces without brilliance, and they did it amazingly. Now they will repeat the magic trick, with reverse efforts: the talents are there, the charter is missing.
Here comes Serbia.
Serbia is ready for the World Cup with full weight against a newly formed defensive line. Vlahovic and Mitrovic, some of the most delicate feet in Europe. What in the world could go wrong?
Well, everything?
In Marakana, there were thousands of children in the stands, and you can tell two things about that: The first is that they saw a massacre that was supposed to be forbidden to children. The second was that at times it seemed as if two children were wearing yellow shirts and were playing football for Sweden.
Sweden made it 1-0 after a quarter, and it was a secondary goal as it stemmed from individual brilliance. Victor Jokers played his part in the physical game, Emil Forsberg With a heel, Dejan Kulusevsky hoisted the ball up a hill, Victor Cleeson Go fast at a typical Clayson target. Sweden, this fall: full of exciting feet, devoid of core game and platform. After all, it was the Serbs who pressed hard, and it was they who were able to play on deserted edges and fast crosses against the armored skulls of Aleksandar Mitrovic and Duzan Vlahovic, and it was they who sealed the chances. When the equalizer came, Mitrovic played 100-0 in the duel against the extremely passive Daniel Sundgren, when the main goal came just before the break, it was three top Serbian players first (Mitrovic first) against single Ludwig Augustinsson in a corner kick.
You cannot accuse Daniel Sundgren of being Daniel Sundgren or Viktor Gyökeres of not being Alexander Isak. I find it hard to judge Isaac Henn, who did a lot of good things and a couple of things worse. The problem was that there was so little stability to deal with all the uncertainty. Jens Cajuste and Mattias Svanberg might be a great midfield in a couple of years, but in September 2022 they were passive and uncertain and showed little ambition to absorb and distribute the ball.
So what do we do now?
Sweden faced a very strong Serbia, away from home, in the kind of match that demands intelligence, fitness and team structure – because no one can count on their emerging offensive proficiency to be enough for three or four goals going forward. In the modern era, the Swedish national team’s equation has always been based on 92 percent of ranking and 8 percent of individual intelligence. When Serbia stripped Sweden, when Mitrovic simply walked in a hat-trick and his 49th goal for the national team right after the first half or (worse) when Sasa Lukic was allowed to stroke unobstructed for 4-1 from the penalty area line – what did the math look like then? Eight percent demand, 2 percent shine, 90 percent humiliation.
This is what it looks like when a good football team waves a team that is hardly a team at all.
Emil Forsberg did his job, and took full responsibility moving forward. Robin Olsen managed to tackle him, as always. The only adult thing I took care of was the yellow team.
So what do we do now?
Noting that there are a hundred excuses and a half years left before the completion of the renovation work. It comforts us that there is a talent bank and a management of the national team that knows at least how they want football, even if for the first time I feel that there is doubt and uncertainty there too.
On Tuesday, Sweden could be relegated to the third division of the Nations League, down to Luxembourg and the Faroe Islands.
We are simply not good enough, said Emil Forsberg after the final whistle.
This was a national team that talked about getting back to basics, but the basics weren’t there to get back to. Slovenia Next, the question is what they will run for on paper next.
Maybe we can call up late centre-back Robin Olsen? How do you feel about it?