World Cup semifinal appearance on the line as Sweden, England do battle

Photo Credit: FIFA.com/Getty Images

Both teams come into this match in Samara playing with house money. England defeated Colombia on penalties (!) and look to advance to the semifinals of the World Cup for the first time since 1990. Sweden’s last semifinal was in 1994 and few expected them to get this far. They have after defeating Switzerland in the Round of 16. 

England will be the favorite in this one in large part due to the Cup’s leading goalscorer (who isn’t “own goal”) Harry Kane with six goals. That said, don’t expect an easy match says defender John Stones.

“There are no easy games. I think if you say it’s an easy game in a quarter-final of a World Cup, then you are pretty stupid to say that,” Stones told Reuters.

“They’ve got a lot of quality. They play very structured from the back, sit quite deep from what we’ve seen, and we know what we’re up against.

“Sometimes they can throw you these teams, they can go kind of under the radar, but there is no question they are a good team. They wouldn’t be where they are if they weren’t.”

Sweden will get Sebastian Larsson back from yellow card suspension, but will lose Mikael Lustig to yellow card suspension. The game plan won’t change for Janne Andersson’s squad as they will look to grind out yet another victory. 

“If you look at the games we have played, the opponent has had more ball possession than we have, but we have created more chances, more dangerous chances,” said Swedish captain Andreas Granqvist.

“This is how we play, this is what we need to do, this is our strength, and we also need to see our quality against other strong teams. This is the way for us to have success, and we’re going to continue this way”.

This match is also of note as 100% of England’s squad all play domestically in England while Sweden was one of two teams who came into this World Cup with zero players playing club football domestically (Senegal the other) at the time squads were announced. Sebastian Larsson has since made a move to AIK Stockholm on June 11th. 

Kickoff for the match is 9am CT on FOX.

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