Good game ends in loss

Lars Lagerbäck began the game against Brazil with a pretty interesting starting lineup. Andreas Isaksson took the place in the goal, with Mikael Nilsson playing on left defense in Erik Edmans absence, Daniel Majstorovic and Olof Mellberg teaming up in the central defense and with Fredrik Stoor handling the right defense. At the midfield, Ljungberg played on the left while Anders Svensson once again took the defensive midfielder position behind Kim Källström. On the right flank Sebastian Larsson got to play his second game in blue-yellow. Up front, Johan Elmander and Marcus Rosenberg were supposed to score the goals.

Sweden played very good from the first minute, creating lots of chances. Anders Svensson dominated on the midfield with his aggressive yet intelligent play. The rest of team also stood up well, with everyone performing above the expectations. Marcus Rosenberg had the first half’s best chance but shot wide. The score at halftime was 0-0, but Sweden played very impressive.

In the second half, Rami Shaaban took the keepers spot and Mikael Dorsin took the left back position. Just a couple of minutes into the half, Anders Svensson had to be subbed with an injury (will be fit in a couple of days) and Daniel Andersson stepped in, making his best performance in several years, yet still not reaching the quality of Svensson’s performance.

Despite Sweden creating a handful of decent chances, Brazil went on to take the lead. Shabaan gave the ball away to debutant Pato who put the ball in the goal with ease. Sweden kept on producing scoring opportunities but didn’t get to put the ball in the net.

1-0 to Brazil but a brilliant performance from the Swede’s. While some of the questions asked before the game – will Stoor be able to handle the pressure? would Larsson do a good job on the midfield – got answered, it also created a lot of new questions. The midfield seems very hard to predict at the moment, but the players who began this game certainly seems like potential starters, all of them… which once again would put Zlatan Ibrahimovic on the bench..