Sweden heads to Women’s World Cup trying to finish run of close to misses at large tournaments

Peter Gerhardsson took a second, then laughed to himself as he contemplated the query many in ladies’s soccer are asking.

Just what’s going to it take for Sweden to finish its lengthy anticipate a significant worldwide trophy?

“The next step,” the Sweden coach informed The Associated Press, “is to score the penalty shot.”

Such are the fantastic margins the Swedes have been treading on the large tournaments over the previous decade or so.

A penalty-shootout loss to Canada within the remaining of the Olympic match in 2021. An extra-time loss to the Netherlands within the 2019 World Cup semifinals. A loss to Germany within the 2016 Olympic remaining. Exits on the semifinals of the European Championships in 2013 and final yr.

It’s a story of woe that might ground many individuals intently related to the staff.

Not Gerhardsson.

He merely places it right down to “one of those things” and prefers to take the positives. Essentially, if Sweden’s gamers preserve placing themselves in these good positions, someday they are going to hit what he calls the “winning formula.”

Maybe that point will come on the upcoming Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

“I don’t believe in being a ‘winner’ or anything like that,” Gerhardsson stated in a cellphone name. “We are competing in a sport the place many various issues can occur in a sport.

“You look at the Olympics (in 2021) where Caroline Seger missed a penalty. I don’t think you can say that if she’d have put it in, we have a better team than in the Euros last year or this World Cup coming now. I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”

Sweden, whose solely worldwide title got here on the 1984 European Championship when solely 4 groups have been concerned, is once more among the many favorites for the World Cup.

How can it not be with a staff that includes Fridolina Rolfo, the scorer of the successful aim within the Champions League remaining for Barcelona this month; or Stina Blackstenius, one of many prime strikers in England with Arsenal; or Magdalena Eriksson, one of the crucial constant middle backs in Europe for years; or Filippa Angeldahl, a midfielder with rising authority at Manchester City.

“Experience for the players playing in big games and big clubs is good for the national team,” Gerhardsson stated. “They are used to playing in front of big crowds, with good teammates around them. That’s the most important thing. If you ask me what the best thing is – to play 90 minutes in the Swedish league or as a substitute at a team like Wolfsburg, I’d say the experience (of the latter) is more important.”

It was on the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics the place then-United States goalkeeper Hope Solo described Sweden as “a bunch of cowards” for dropping off and defending deeply in a quarterfinal match that ended with the Americans shedding a penalty shootout.

The Swedes have developed since then and below Gerhardsson, the coach since 2016 and with a contract till 2025, they’re a modern-day urgent and counterattacking staff, nonetheless not one favoring a possession-based method.

“I say to my girls, ‘Can you remember when you started playing, when you were 5, 6, 7, 8, what you did when you lost the ball? You chased it.’ Just go – 1, 2, 3, 4. Everybody wants the ball,” Gerhardsson stated. “I want to create some of the intuition that they had when they started playing football. Not be standing, watching slow (buildup play).”

Rolfo will arrive in New Zealand, the place Sweden will play its group matches in opposition to South Africa, Italy and Argentina, as one of the crucial talked-about gamers in ladies’s soccer after that crowning achievement on the finish of her second season at Barcelona.

She’ll play a extra attacking function for Sweden than she does at Barcelona, the place she has been deployed at left again or as a wing again.

“For me, she has shown she has tremendous left-foot shooting and I need to find positions for her to come in that situation,” Gerhardsson stated. “I exploit her typically in numerous methods. As a No. 10; on the best aspect coming in with a left-footed shot.

“In the Swedish national team, she has a more offensive position because we need it.”

As for the 38-year-old Seger, she has been included within the squad for what will likely be her fifth and sure remaining World Cup regardless of barely taking part in during the last yr.

“She creates time, always, and has a good technique,” Gerhardsson stated. “I like players like that, who have more time than other players.”

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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