Team Sweden readies for tough slog ahead in Group D matches

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This article was published 05/06/2015 (4097 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Their quality history is one of the reasons Group D at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is known as the “Group of Death.”

Sweden has been in every World Cup played – advancing to the semifinals three times and once to the final – and is well-aware the challenge to be faced in this preliminary round against the U.S., Australia and Nigeria.

Group D play starts Monday at Investors Group Field in Winnipeg when Sweden meets Nigeria at 3 p.m.

“It is tough,” veteran Swedish coach Pia Sundhage said this morning at the Waverley Soccer Complex, where her team is working out. “I think we have the hardest opening game. Nigeria, well all of us coaches we know pretty much everything about everybody but it’s hard to find video clips from Nigeria.

“At the same time, we have some people around the world and we have done our very best so I think we are well-prepared and we know that will be a tough game and we will do our best.

“Having played Nigeria, then we will play the U.S. team that won the Olympic gold medal and probably one of the best teams in the world. So we look at it… I learned something in the States, that it’s a privilege to play under pressure and it is a privilege to coach under pressure.”

The Swedes have prepared a little differently for this championship because it’s being played on field turn, not grass, Sundhage said today.

“Yes. First of all, we have not had as many days if you compare it to the U.S. Australia and Nigeria, being together, because we have the league that stopped May 21,” she said today. “So that’s one thing. But look at the turf and we’ve had some practices resting some of the players, not having them play and train the 90 minutes, and make the training a little bit shorter to make sure we have healthy players and players that are ready to go for the next game.”

Sweden didn’t have the best of springs in preparation for the World Cup, with early-year losses to Germany, Brazil and Switzerland and a draw with Denmark. Mixed in were five other victories in this calendar year, including a tune-up win over the Netherlands last week in Toronto.

Sundhage didn’t sound worried.

“I’m a positive person,” she said. “There are signs… we tried to play a different system and then we got a bad injury. I love the way we have changed a little bit. We have the ability to be flexible. Some of the results have been an eye-opener.

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“You have to go back to yourself — do I really do my very best, did the team play the very best it can? Right now I would say yes. That’s because it’s been a little bit of a bumpy road but I love that, the fact that the World Cup is always more than a gold medal, it’s actually the road to the gold medal, to enjoy every single day of it, every practice, the one we’re going to have today. The Swedish way, so far, is very bumpy but still you can reach the gold.”

The coach, who was at the helm of the American side four years ago before returning to her native country, is thrilled with the expansion of the women’s game around the world, including the increase to 24 teams in this championship.

“Absolutely, that’s the best thing they could have done, extended it to 24 teams,” Sundhage said. “You have 24 countries that talk about the game and I think it’s a beautiful game and I think it’s fair enough that you have women playing this beautiful game.

“Today we have sell-outs. I was a coach for the U.S. team and in the very beginning we had some games with four or five thousand watching. Today, everybody wants to see Abby Wambach. I’m happy for that because the women’s game deserves that.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca