Preview: Sweden-Ukraine Friendly

August 9th, 2011 | by: aron | Comments Off

Writing a blog about football means having to admit that you are wrong more often than not. In this latest instance, it was my idea about whom Hamren was going to select for the friendly against the Ukraine tomorrow. I was wrong about Mellberg (vacation), Ibrahimovic (vacation), Martin Olsson (who knows why?), Mikael Antonsson (no reason given), and Rasmus Elm (also no reason given but I am guessing that he needs some time to get back in proper national team shape again).

Then there were two injuries to the 18-man squad that need to be taken into account: Ola Toivonen has thigh problems and Johan Wiland injured his finger. The replacements were Albin Ekdal (the man on the Juve bench) and keeper Pär Hansson from Helsingborg.

With the squad issues behind us, it would be worth reemphasizing what the meaning of this game really is. Ibrahimovic and Toivonen are missing and they are important pieces of the national team puzzle, but the truth is that we have three super important games coming up quickly this fall. First we have to go to Budapest and play Hungary and then a couple of days later we go to San Marino. It is fair enough to assume that we are going to get three points in San Marino, but everything else is far from a done deal. We have to at least play Hungary to a draw, as a loss puts us back at the same level of points as them and means that we would have to win against Holland to be sure of the second place in the group. Then in the last two qualifiers of the year we have to go to Helsinki and take on Finland that will then be followed by a final home game against the Netherlands. Finland away is also far from easy, and it is worse when I think about the utter humiliation we subjected them to in Stockholm. They will not have forgotten it!

The Ukraine is not a team to take lightly whether it is in a qualifier or a friendly. They are a team that is essentially on par with our own and that means that we can use them as a proper prep game for Hungary. Sure its easy to say that we have done well in Budapest the last few times we’ve been there, but every game is different and there are no guaranteed away wins anymore (except perhaps San Marino). The last time we went to Budapest we barely took three points until Ibrahimovic chested the ball into goal in the last play of the game. Against the Ukraine we need to work on our wings as much as possible which is why I am expecting our starting line-up to look something like this:

Isaksson

Lustig, Granqvist (maybe Olsson?), Majstorovic, Wendt

Svensson, Källström

Larsson, Wernbloom, Bajrami

Elmander

What I don’t like about this starting eleven is that I don’t think that Wernbloom and Elmander will be able to hold the ball long enough for us to go forward and actually threaten the Ukrainian back four. This is where we will be missing Ibrahimovic and Toivonen. One solution to this would be to switch Källström and Wernbloom, but by doing so it would mean that Källström is out of his favorite position and there is the problem that Wernbloom may not be the high quality passer we need for the defensive midfielder role. If Elmander and Wernbloom don’t work out together than it would be an interesting idea to let Gerndt play in the central striker role. The question remains as to what kind of shape Elmander is in in the first place: the Turkish League has not started yet due to a scandal involving some clubs and it will be interesting to see what the final outcome of the whole thing is.

It is important for both Larsson and Bajrami to keep things happening on their respective wings. This will be extremely important for the Hungary game that both of them can hold the ball, advance up the field, and be able to get the ball to those in the penalty area. Both Larsson and Bajrami are important to the future of the Swedish National Team and that is why they need to play as much as possible. Bajrami needs to work on improving his stamina so that he doesn’t disappear as much during the run of play.

I would also like to see Albin Ekdal get some playing time and he could very well be the replacement player for either Wernbloom or Bajrami depending on how the game goes. He is an exciting young player who plays in one of the better leagues in the world at the moment. Still he has been plagued with injury problems and that is what has kept him from reaching higher heights in my opinion.

I am not going to bother all that much with the Ukrainian team. This game is really just a warm up for later things to come and whether we win or lose is not all that important: I would rather lose here and win against Hungary then have it any other way. After the two big wins just before the summer against Moldova and Finland, it looked like we’d gotten our groove back. I hope we keep that groove going for a little while anyway!

My final tip is 2-2 in a back and forth game that I still hope we might actually win!

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As always at this time of the year, the silly season rumor mill is cranking out one crazy thing after another. Today Mikael Lustig (our right back) is on his way to “several” teams in La Liga. I don’t believe this for even a second!

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Update: Here is the official starting eleven for the Sweden-Ukraine friendly this evening with kick-off at 20:00 Swedish time.

Isaksson

Lustig, Majstorovic, Granqvist, Wendt

Svensson (C), Källström

Larsson, Elmander, Bajrami

Gerndt

Its going to be a good game!