San Marino Review: Doubts come creeping in

September 8th, 2011 | by: aron | Comments Off

I might as well start with the bad news because there is plenty of it at the moment. We are currently tied at 18 points with Hungary for the second place in group E and while Hungary have only one game left (and that is Finland at home), we have two to go and one of them is Finland away and the other is the Netherlands at home. That means that all the pressure is on us for the game in Helsinki on the 7^th of October and so far we have not played well under pressure. Sure we have had some great games, but when it came down to really meaning something, we crumbled like a house built on a foundation of desert sand.

The good news is we got the job done in San Marino. It wasn´t pretty though and while I did watch the second half, I couldn´t believe my eyes when I turned on the computer and saw on the liveticker that it was 0-0 after 50 minutes of play. It took us 63 minutes to score a goal against the worst team in the world. Last time I saw a team perform that bad was when we needed a Malteese defender´s knee to give us an own goal in a 1-0 away win that goes down in history as one of the most nerve-wracking games I have lived through.

Hamren reacted harshly to the poor performance against Hungary by throwing three players out of the starting line-up. In the Lagerbäckian era this type of action was unheard of and all the players who´d had a terrible game the previous match would be given another chance with the rationalization that well, you know, bad games happen and we had the some bad luck, etc. No, that kind of explanation wasn´t given by Hamren, instead he put Svensson and Larsson on the bench and made Wendt watch from the stands. Martin Olsson, Rasmus Elm, and Toivonen got the start. The only one who really showed he might be a man for the future at the moment is Rasmus Elm.

All of this brings us back to the Finland game. We. Have. To. Win. There is no other way. A bad day in Helsinki in one month and we can start booking our vacation plans for the summer of 2012, because we won´t be going to Poland and Ukraine. Hamren has got to find a plan that works, some players who are match fit (I am looking at you Ibrahimovic), and hope for the return of the Swedish Viking Olof Mellberg in the back four. If all this comes together (and to be honest all the Finns have to play for at the moment is their pride) then we win in Helsinki 1-0 or 2-1 and then we have at least made it to a play off. Ideal? Nope, not for a single second, but we gave away the hope of anything better when we let the Hungarians counter us to pieces.

The thing to take away from all of this is that match fitness and mentality are the two things we really need to work for the next month here and lets remember that I don´t think there is any chance in hell that Finland could beat Hungary in their last game on the 11^th. The whole team needs to step up, grab this by the horns, and win or forget Euro 2012.