AFTER THEIR CAPTAIN AND LEADING player exchanged heated words in the aftermath of a disappointing draw with Trinidad & Tobago, there can be no questioning Sweden’s willingness to fight. With the stench of yet another fallout between Olof Mellberg and Fredrik Ljungberg after Lars Lagerbäck’s team wherever they go, however, it is time that such an acrimonious aroma was replaced by the more positive smell of team spirit.
If not quite a crisis, the threat of possible calamity fills the air. Having been on the wrong end of the tournament’s only real shock to date, Sweden must beat Paraguay tonight to keep control of their destiny in group B.
Mellberg maintains that morale remains unaffected by his stand-off with the Arsenal midfield player — the product of a long-standing mutual dislike rather than any Swedish tendency to implode under pressure — although it is significant that he refused to apologise.
“All the fuss after the last game hasn’t really affected me,” the Aston Villa central defender said. “Since we came down here to Germany we have been tight as a squad. If he was upset, it was probably because of the result. Disappointed is probably the word, we all were, and that disappointment showed in the dressing-room after the match. If you have a lot of winners in the side you often win games, so drawing can be a little bit of a knock-back. I don’t think that’s a problem, there’s nothing negative about that. Anything that happens in the dressing-room or in our meetings we want to keep to ourselves.”
The widespread pain felt by any early elimination will be more difficult to hide. Lagerbäck was asked by one of many concerned Swedish journalists yesterday whether this was the most important match of his six-year reign, with Mellberg giving a further indication of the pressure they are under by admitting that they have given up hope of topping the group.
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“In a way we are playing for second because of the results in the first round of matches,” he said. “I think we expect England to beat Trinidad & Tobago, so we’re having to look at second place in the group. It’s such an important game [today] and we know we need to get a result. That’s imperative.”
To do so, Sweden must improve their dreadful recent scoring record. They have found the net only twice in six matches this year, none of which has ended in victory. Marcus Allbäck, the FC Copenhagen striker who was as guilty as anyone of missing chances against Trinidad & Tobago last week, claimed not to be worried, although a huge outpouring of relief will surely greet Sweden’s next goal.
“With all the chances we created in the last game, we should have scored two or three goals, but it’s a matter of creating those opportunities,” Allbäck said. “We would have been more frustrated if we had not created those chances. We are not really thinking about it, whether it’s nine or 90 hours without a goal.”