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We are going to start off our preview of the best and brightest teams in the 2015 World Cup with a look that “The Other Team” in this Summer’s Group of Death: Sweden, currently ranked 5th in the world.
Fans of the USWNT should be wary scoffing and stating, “but we handed them one of the worst defeats in their history in 2012, why should we worry about them?” Why, you ask? Because Sweden is the real deal: they have never been ranked lower than 6th since FIFA’s Women’s World Rankings were released in 2003; they have qualified for every single World Cup and European Championship, and in both competitions they have finished outside of the top 6 only once.
Their team has the perfect mix of youth and experience. Marija Banusic, 19, and Therese Sjorgan, 37, bookend a squad whose average age is a shade under 27. This pleasant spectrum of ages is complimented by domestic familiarity: most of the squad hails from Sweden’s Damallsvenskan, with only 8 of its 23 players based in the English, French, or German leagues.
Of course, we cannot talk about Swedish players without mentioning Lotta Schelin, who, besides being great friends with the USA’s Hope Solo, represents arguably the biggest goal threat in the entire Group of Death.
Looking at Lotta Schelin’s club record, we struggle to come to any conclusion other than she is an absolute dynamo. She moved to Olympique Lyon in the French top flight in 2008, and has since cemented herself as a keystone in the most dangerous attack in club sports. She has scored 127 goals in 119 appearances with PSG, helping the club to 7 straight league titles — for the mathematically challenged, that means that she has won the league every single year since she arrived — and the past 4 straight French domestic cups.
If Lotta Schelin is to replicate that astonishing club scoring rate when she takes the field this Summer, more likely than not it will be with the help of some slick passing. Current Sweden Manager, and former USWNT manager, Pia Sundhage has implemented a more possession heavy approach than Sweden has previously employed, one which counts on the productivity of experienced midfielder Caroline Seger.
The implementation of this possession oriented tactic has not gone flawlessly, however. Despite winning their World Cup qualifying group in resounding fashion, conceding only 1 goal and dropping a grand total of zero points throughout, Sweden was the lowest scoring team of any group winner. Pia Sundhage herself has lamented her team’s “terrible difficulty in creating chances.”
Corroborating these struggles has been a mediocre all around record in 2015. They may have been undefeated in qualifying, but overall Sweden has posted a record of 4-1-3 since the turn of the new year. More troubling still are the teams against which these losses have come: Brazil, Germany, and Switzerland. All three of those teams will join Sweden in Canada, and all three are potential match-ups in the knockout rounds. Sweden will need much more than the two goals they scored across those three losses if they hope to advance.
Be that as it may, Sweden are still the co-favorites, along with the US, to make it out of their group, deadly as it may be. Whatever deficiencies they may have in the chance creation department will undoubtedly catch up to them at some point, but they also represent the one true flaw of this team. And, in an international competition like the World Cup, where defenses are well drilled and attacks have little time to gel, it is often a team’s ability to keep goals out their net, rather than put them their opponents, that is a more telling predictor of success. If Lotta Schelin and one or two of her teammates can find their scoring touch and a modicum of chemistry, look for Sweden to make it to the semifinals, at least.
