Ireland – Sweden Friendly

Tomorrow Lagerbäck announce the squad for the friendly game against Ireland in Dublin. Lagerbäck says that he will nominate the strongest squad available, no players will be aloud to stay with their club teams. This is the last match before Lagerbäck announce the squad for the world cup and players that do not get a chance against Ireland are not likely to be in the World Cup squad.

The most interesting thing to look at is which forwards that Lagerbäck choose, Larsson and Ibrahimovic are the only two that can be certain to go to Germany. Mattias Jonsson and Marcus Rosenberg are likely to be nominated and behind them Marcus Allbäck and Johan Elmander compete about the last place. Zlatan Muslimovic or Andreas Johansson might be Lagerbäcks dark horse. I do not think there will be any surprises tomorrow and Muslimovic and Johansson will not be in the squad against Ireland, Elmander still suffer of a hand injury and will stay in Copenhagen.

Six midfielders have probably already received their tickets, Freddie Ljungberg, Tobias Linderoth, Anders Svensson, Kim Källström, Niclas Alexandersson and Christian Wilhelmsson. Daniel Andersson will probably be a backup as defensive midfielder. Tobias Hysén, Pontus Farnerud and Dusan Djuric may have a chance and I think that Lagerbäck will give Hysén 45 minutes against Ireland.

Erik Edman, Alexander Östlund, Teddy Lucic, Olof Mellberg and Petter Hansson can only be stopped by an injury. Then will Lagerbäck probably choose Mikael Nilsson and Christoffer Andersson as backup players. Nilsson is at the moment injured so I think that Fredrik Stenman will be in the squad against Ireland.

Isaksson is our first keeper, and as backup Lagerbäck will choose Eddie Gustafsson and John Alvbåge.

Tomorrow we will know and I hope that Lagerbäck prove me wrong and give the chance to not only Stenman and Hysén but also Djuric and Muslimovic.