Left field

Sweden hope Ibrahimovic can sparkle now Milan are out

Phil O’Connor

There was one soccer coach just as happy as Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola on Tuesday when his side knocked AC Milan out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage.

That man is Sweden coach Erik Hamren.

With Euro 2012 approaching fast, Hamren will be quietly pleased that top striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic won’t be involved in the final in Munich on May 19 and can instead avoid injury and stay fresh.

Zlatan may not be as pleased. Having won a slew of titles with Juventus, Inter, Barcelona and Milan, “that damn Champions League” (as he once referred to it) remains beyond his grasp.

In a recent interview with a UEFA magazine he changed his tune somewhat, saying he is happy with his career regardless of whether or not he wins Europe’s premier club competition.

This sent me flicking through my notebooks and I came across an entry from a Sweden press conference in 2009, just after he had secured yet another Serie A title with Inter. Ibra finished the season as Italy’s capocannoniere (top scorer) on 25 goals – typically, the goal that put him on top was an outrageous backheel on the last day of the season against Atalanta.

Ibrahimovic answers critics but questions remain about Milan

Phil O’Connor

It’s taken a long time, but Zlatan Ibrahimovic has finally delivered a performance worthy of his talent against an English team in the Champions League.

Long scoffed at by British fans and journalists  for his pale imitation of a  top-class striker in Europe’s top competition, Zlatan delivered something of a virtuoso performance as Milan thrashed Arsenal 4-0 at the San Siro, rendering the last 16 return leg in London next month all but meaningless.

His passing – particularly in the first half when his pinpoint cross picked out Robinho for the Rossoneri‘s second goal – was sublime and in the second half he got the goal he richly deserved, firing home Milan’s fourth from the penalty spot after he was dragged down by Johan Djourou.

But questions still remain about the Swede and his team mates. As excellent as he was on it, Ibra’s movement off the ball was sometimes  slow and laboured, while every time a pass went astray he gestured his discontent to his colleagues.

Indeed, his whole team seemed affected by selfishness; Robinho never bothered to thank Zlatan for the great assist and several Milan players took wild shots when Ibra was better-placed to finish.

Once ranked as Europe’s best for their clinical, technical displays in Europe, Italian sides have stood in the shadow of Spanish “tiki-taka” for the past few years.

Sweden boosted by Guidetti and Ibra displays

By Phil O’Connor

Under normal circumstances Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s dipping first-half free kick in AC Milan’s 3-0 win over Cagliari on Sunday would have been enough to give Sweden coach Erik Hamren a pleasant end to the weekend.

But if Hamren had been watching Feyenoord beat Ajax in in Holland’s Eredivisie on Saturday he would have seen another Swede, John Guidetti, net a hat-trick as Feyenoord won 4-2, giving him a mouthwatering selection problem ahead of Euro 2012.

On loan from Manchester City, Guidetti is widely considered to be one of Sweden’s most promising talents in the post-Zlatan generation, but until his move to Rotterdam he hadn’t done much at the top level of the game.

Starved of opportunities at mega-rich Manchester City, he had a successful spell on loan back in Sweden with Brommapojkarna and a short stay at Burnley. These two stints have given a glimpse of his precocious talent, but it is in Holland that he is finally starting to deliver.

Fourteen goals so far this term for Feyenoord have made him a fan favourite, with his hat-tricks against Twente and Ajax going a long way to establishing his reputation.   He broke into the Swedish Under-21 side in May 2010, and with Alexander Gerndt – recently convicted on a domestic violence charge – unlikely to be picked for the foreseeable future, Guidetti may be fast-tracked into Hamren’s senior setup in time for Euro 2012.

If Hamren is considering bringing him to face France, England and Ukraine at the finals it is likely that he wil be in the next squad to face Croatia in a February friendly.

Swedish football family suffering Christmas unrest

By Philip O’Connor, Scandinavia sports correspondent

Sweden’s soccer year officially came to an end last week with Wednesday’s traditional press conference and Christmas lunch at the football association’s Rasunda headquarters.

The normally sedate affair was given extra spice by Alexander Gerndt’s conviction the previous day for domestic violence and the FA’s reaction to it.

The Utrecht striker’s hearing in a Helsingborg court appeared to catch the Swedish game’s governing body by surprise.

Chairman Lars-Ake Lagrell, soon to retire after 21 years at the helm, first appeared to suggest that the suspended sentence and fine was punishment enough and that the Gerndt would be given no further sanction.

National team coach Erik Hamren said on Wednesday he had not been aware of any impending verdict in the case.

In a land as conscious of equality and respect as Sweden, that was never going to be enough.

Post-Christmas cheer in Oslo for out-of-contract players

By Philip O’Connor, Scandinavia sports correspondent

For many football fans, the post-Christmas blues will be banished by the prospect of their club buying big when the transfer window opens in January.

But the out-of-contract players taking part in the FIFPro Winter Tournament in Oslo are hoping to get their futures sorted out before the window opens again.

On a full-size indoor pitch, players affiliated to Norwegians, Swedish, Finnish and Irish unions got together to play a tournament in front of invited scouts and club representatives from across the region.

All the players are out of contract, and many are desperate for a chance to stay in the game.

“We had 120 players looking for places in the squad,” Irish players’ union boss Steephen McGuinness told Reuters. “Last week we took the decision to bump the kitman, just so we could bring another player on the plane”.

For McGuinness and some of his players, it’s their second visit; some of them got short-term deals at the first tournament here in January, but with many clubs in Ireland and elsewhere only offering short-term, 40 week contracts, several have come back to try their luck again.

from Reuters Soccer Blog:

Swedes show Dutch courage

By Philip O'Connor

Sweden’s 3-2 victory over the Netherlands to qualify for Euro 2012 may have surprised many observers, but Swedish footballers have a long history of success against Dutch opposition.

The home of "Total Football" has for many years been something of a finishing school for Swedish footballers, and five of the players in the victorious Sweden squad play their club football in the Netherlands.

Many others have passed through Holland on their way to better things.

“Holland is not unlike Sweden. When they get there, Swedish players are well-schooled and it’s a good country to go to, especially as a first stop (in their career),” Henrik Larsson told the Reuters Sports Blog the day after the Swedes handed the Dutch their only defeat of the qualifying campaign.

“They play good football and most people there speak English, so you can make yourself understood much easier than in a league that has a more difficult language,” Larsson said.

It’s an atmosphere that Swedes seem to thrive in.

from Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010:

Olympics Hockey Super Sunday — live

We're running a live blog on the mouth-watering line up of hockey on Sunday, featuring Russia v Czech Republic in Group B, Canada v United States in Group A and Sweden v Finland in Group C.

We'll be talking hockey all day so please feel free to dip in. The fun starts Sunday. Early.

from Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010:

Sweden’s Queen of the Slopes revels in lack of attention

All the pre-Olympic attention in women’s Alpine Skiing has been on American Lindsey Vonn, her form, her posing on the cover of Sports Illustrated, her shin injury, her cheesetherapy, her husband/coach/spokesman Thomas and her ever so hip social networking ability (yes, she tweets her facebook updates). It’s almost as though seven-times world champion Anja Paerson wasn’t here…..

Which suits the 28-year-old Swede just fine. The true Queen of the Slopes, the most successful active women’s skier on the circuit, Paerson doesn’t mind the lack of attention.

Despite her elevated status in the sport, only two non-Swedish journalists bothered to turn up to her pre-Olympics press conference. That was even more surprising given that, as well as being a multiple medal contender, Paerson, who has been on the World Cup tour for 12 years, also happens to be one of the smartest, most articulate athlete on the circuit and is frequently outspoken on issues of concern to her and her fellow skiers.

I was fortunate enough to witness a lot of Paerson’s successes in the mid noughties –- some key wins in her two overall World Cup titles in 2004 and 2005, the two golds in the world championships at Bormio in 2005 and her Olympic gold in slalom a year later at the Turin Games. In among those many highlights (she is the only woman to have won gold in every world championship event) there have been times when she has looked and sounded bored or frustrated with skiing. There has been the feeling that she needed to be angry to perform well.

But speaking to her this week at the Olympic village in Whistler, Paerson struck me as being someone very content personally and professionally.

“I feel really great, the preparations have been good and I feel calm and in good harmony, I like the course, I like the slope, the snow is a little bit more like spring snow and I feel very comfortable with that,” she said this week.

The storylines have focused on Vonn and her closest challenger Maria Riesch of Germany but Paerson has hit some good form at just the right moment. She is currently third in the overall standings having since the start of this year finished on the podium in downhill, super-G and giant slalom and won in super-combined. If she were a teenager the ski press would be going wild about form like that.

Eriksson sacked as Mexico coach (Update)

Eight years ago, Mexico lost 3-1 away to Honduras in a World Cup qualifier, sunk by a Carlos Pavon hat-trick, and the defeat cost Enrique Meza his job.

Already under enormous pressure, Meza quit in the dressing room afterwards and has gone on to become a highly successful coach with Pachuca, a friendly club founded by Cornish miners whose modern-day facilities would put many of their European counterparts to shame.

On Wednesday, Mexico lost by the same score against the same opponents in the same stadium in another World Cup qualifier. By a strange coincidence Pavon was on target again, the mercurial striker having been brought back at the age of 35 to replace the injured David Suazo.

The result cost Sven-Goran Eriksson his job.

“This morning we talked to Mr Eriksson and announced his departure,” Mexican Football Federation (FMF) president Justino Compean told a news conference. “It’s a fact results have not been what we expected.”

Eriksson’s future seems to have been in doubt almost since the day he was appointed last June.

An empty Davis Cup gesture

Not many have welcomed Sweden’s decision to host their first round tie against Israel behind closed doors but it is the sort of situation Andy Ram and his fellow Israelis are fast becoming used to.

Until two weeks ago, Ram, a doubles specialist, could easily slip in and out of a tournament unnoticed but has suddenly had to get used to having an army of bodyguards surrounding him whenever he steps on to a tennis court.

The UAE, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel and routinely denies entry to its citizens, was forced to change its policy of barring Israeli athletes entry into the Gulf state after the worldwide condemnation it received for excluding Shahar Peer earlier this month from a women’s event.

While it came as little surprise that Ram was surrounded by heavy security when he participated in the Dubai Championships, eyebrows have been raised by Sweden’s stance.

International Tennis Federation president Francesco Ricci Bitti hoped Swedish authorities would reconsider their decision to stage the March 6-8 tie in Malmo in an empty arena.

“The security plan already submitted by the Malmo police and the efforts of the two tennis associations would be enough to allow the tie to take place under normal circumstances,” said Ricci Bitti.

“Therefore we do not agree with the decision by the Malmo authorities to exclude the public, and even at this late date, maintain our request that the decision not to allow spectators be reconsidered.”