The view from Sweden

The coverage of the World Cup in Stockholm and Sweden this week provided an insight into the workings of the Swedish psyche. In the face of adversity Swedes self-destruct, and lash out at their leaders. But when things go right, everything is perfect – even if it really isn’t. Hmm.

In the run-up to the Paraguay match Sweden-coach Lars Lagerbäck and his band of merry men were under considerable pressure. The media, that had portrayed the squad as a bunch of fluffy friends away at summer camp in the run up to the tournament, suddenly showed their claws and laid into the team.

Anders Svensson, the misfiring midfielder, practically Saint Svensson after THAT free kick against Argentina in the World Cup four years ago, was suddenly the Fall Guy. Overnight Svensson represented everything wrong with the team: he was ineffectual, lacking ideas and struggled. Funny, the same could have been said about Ljungberg, Zlatan, Henke Larsson or any of the other so-called stars.

The daily snoresheet DN decided that Lagerbäck was increasingly prone to misreading the match statistics as he went from proclaiming Sweden’s performance against Trinidad Tobago as “good” to “really good” in the space of a day.

With a place in the knock-out stage of the tournament at stake, the build up to the Paraguay match erred on hysteria, with everyone talking about how the side would do. Most of the country, however, was predicting a draw given the team’s record of failing to win in almost 8 months.

The match itself proved to be pretty much like the Trinidad Tobago game. Except with two minutes to go and the scores 0-0, up popped Freddie Ljungberg to score the winner. Suddenly Sweden were winners and the match commentators grinned with glee. Everyone on street seemed to be screaming with joy. There was no trace of Nordic reticence. Pundits shuffled forth confessing that they’d believed in the side all along. The next day’s broadsheets and tabloids went overboard proclaiming the prowess of Sir Freddie Ljungberg, heralding the tactics of Lagerbäck and only grumbling slightly at the form of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The lack of confidence the nation had had just 12 hours earlier had vanished – after a patchy 1-0 victory.

With two days to go to Sweden’s final Group B match against England, the Swedish press’ faith in the team is seemingly restored. The confidence is back, restored by a unbeaten record against England that stretches over twenty years, and plenty of column inches are being filled with thinly veiled attacks against England and English journalists.

No, you wouldn’t want to be an Englishman in Sweden right now. Despite beating Trinidad and Tobago with two superb goals where Swedem strugled, England have been written off by the Swedes as a group of talented individuals prone to self-destruct. Today’s DN even devoted half a page to celebrating the skills of Sven-Göran Ericksson, applauding the way he’s conquered the English press pack that hound him and produced assembled a cultured squad of players that are capable of winning the tournament if it wasn’t for the English penchant for reckless, high-paced football instead of hitting teams on the counter-attack like Sweden. In other words, Swedes think England should be more like Swedes.

Whatever happens, I figure it will be fun to witness Swedish meglomania should Lagerbäck’s band of merry men beat Sven-Göran Ericksson’s England; or Swedish passive aggressiveness if the merry men play to form and limp away with a draw or defeat.

Still, it’s only football.