Sweden are definitely one of our bogey teams - we haven't beaten them since 1968, the year I was born!
The match got off to a terrible start for England when after only one minute Michael Owen fell awkwardly when a knee injury and crawled off the pitch in pain. Looks bad, I don't think he'll be back for the rest of the tournament. Crouch came on as sub.
We had plenty of shots on goal in the first half but it was pretty even steven.
Then out of nowhere, Joe Cole pops up in the 34th minute, takes the ball on the chest and volleys the ball spectacularly from about 25 yards out which looped over the Swedish goalie. Raaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
In the second half England looked vunerable in defence, unable to deal with set pieces. It wasn't long before Sweden equalised following a corner which Allback headed down, with Ashley Cole being unable to clear off the goal line.
We were under continued pressure until the 85th minute when Gerrard scored with his head from a Joe Cole cross. (Incidentally, I ran around the living room at that point woohooing like an idiot). Could it be a very rare win against the Swedes? Could we hang on for just another five minutes? Hell no! That would be far too easy. Again, England's defence failed to deal with the ball and Larsson bundled it into our net in the 90th minute. ARGH!
Thank goodness we didn't lose though. As winners of our group we will now be facing Ecuador in the 2nd phase instead of the Germans.
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