It's a frustrating feeling losing a World Cup Qualifying game. Sweden had their chances, Bulgaria just capitalized on more of their opportunities. I'm not even sure if Forsberg's penalty miss would have changed the outcome. Sweden just ran into a very good home team today.
I admire their effort however, they came into the game with a goal scoring mindset and scored two goals and creating numerous more chances. When they fell behind 1-0 they had no choice but to go all out and hope for goals.
At the end of day, France beat the Netherlands 4-0 and therefore, even a 1-0 win for Sweden wouldn't have been enough for Sweden to keep top spot in the group.
Second place is still extremely possible but it now might mean that they will have to gut out a result in Amsterdam in October.
The Belarus game will determine if this is a blip on the Sweds Qualifying journey or is this team spiraling out of control at the worst possible time.
Still a lot to play for, and if I have to guess, I think Sweden still qualifies for Russia 2018. No guarantee that the Netherlands pick up maximum points in their next two games as a home date with Bulgaria and a away trip to Belarus loom for the Dutch.
Would love to see Sweden win 3-0 over Belarus on Sunday. Offensively today, Sweden looked great and therefore I wouldn't be surprised if Sweden was able to do that to a depleted Belarus roster right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment