Sweden v Bulgaria

naitkris

19:45 kickoff at Lisbon (José Alvalade).

Odds from bookies: 1/1 Sweden – 11/5 Bulgaria – 11/5 Draw

i predict 4-0 to Sweden like WC 1994 3rd place playoff. well maybe not, but i think (and hope) a win of some sort will go to Sweden. Sweden btw haven't won a competitive opening game to a tournament since 1958 and that was when they were hosting the World Cup so in that sense Bulgaria could be favourites, lol.

Bulgaria did very well in qualifying, topping their group and look a new brighter side - should be an interesting game to see what Bulgaria have up their sleeve and also whether Sweden are a new team and can go all the way this time, or not as has happened all too often in the past.

Big Ears

2-1 Sweden , Henke scoring the winner some time in the last 20 minutes .

thejollyrodger

bulgaria looked the better team at the start of the game, but look pure dodgy at the back...

ljunderburgs goal was ok..


Im going for 2-1 to Swedeen

tuxy

does john giles have alzheimers?

eirebhoy

That was only Ljunberg's 4th goal for his country and what a time to score it. I'll be suprised if there isn't any more goals, I think this will be the first match of the tournament won by more than 1 goal. 3-0 Sweden, Larsson to get the 2.:)

KdjaCL

Still sticking wiht original 3-1 to Bul but can see sweden ripping them apart with their sublime long ball tactics.

kdjac

KdjaCL

Larsson may get a few he well used to long ball tactics ,god i hate that crap


Bulgaria going forward are superb overplay it a bt but nice to see Petrov being allowed to pass on the ground.


kdjac

Big Ears

Originally posted by tuxx
does john giles have alzheimers?

yes .

thejollyrodger

bulgaria look lightly to score... but still looked like Eircom 1st division at the back.

it must be really hot out there, some of the fellas dont look to hard pressed ... i reckon this is a better game that the italia-denmark game(where was totti was).

thejollyrodger

magnificant goal one of the best so far in the tournament

noooooo another one !!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Bulgaria are crap

Pacifico

Originally posted by eirebhoy
..... 3-0 Sweden, Larsson to get the 2.:)

Creepy

zAbbo

5-0, jaysis how did Bulgaria get to the finals at all

Harry2001

Swedes should play like that more often, 5-0 is harsh on Bulgaria though

Clinical finishes from Larsson

Pepe LeFrits

As soon as the 2nd goal went in Bulgaria fell apart, up to that they were every bit as good as Sweden.

Sweden for the championship!

Big Ears

Originally posted by bazH
5-0, jaysis how did Bulgaria get to the finals at all

but scoring 13 goals and conceading 4 .
well they did only have Belgium and Croatia in their group , not exactly frightning

Washout

Absolutely clinical finshing.

never seen a worse defense either..look at the way they tried to play offside for the last goal.

Italy Sweden will be a good game i thinks.

eirebhoy

Bulgaria won a group with Croatia and Belgium in it and only conceded 4 goals so they can't be that bad.

I'm nearly as happy as I would be to see Ireland winning because Larsson just showed the world how good he is. Two superb goal and a quality assist at the end to round it off. A few people on this board say he isn't world class and would struggle to score more than 10 in the premiership. He has now scored 14 goals in his last 16 matches for Sweden and is the joint top scorer in Europe out of all the current players with 45 goals in 75 matches. Ask most Sweden fans who their best player is and he'd come out on top which says a lot considering they have Ibrahimovic and Ljunberg in the team.

I think most people (even jesus_thats_gre) will admit after this tournament that Larsson is world class and now we can compare other SPL players to him. He scored just 30 goals in the SPL this season so maybe the standard is not as bad as people think.

I have Ljunberg and Larsson in my UEFA fantasy football team BTW.:)

naitkris

Sweden played so crap (particularly defensively) for most of the first half and early parts of the second... as a Swede i was on the edge of my seat with Bulgaria having most of the possesion in that first half and creating some half-chances at goal.

Larsson and Ibrahimovic did particularly well for Sweden, but Sweden's teamplay for most of the game was shocking considering the opposition they faced wasn't the best.

Bulgaria, well i didn't think the game would be anything near a repeat of 4-0 in the WC 1994 3rd place play-off, but 5-0!!! - their defence was so so bad! they really need to work on their defence more than anything for their next 2 games if they don't want to see a repeat of the 5-0 against Sweden against Denmark and then Italy. i am surprised Bulgaria lost 5-0 considering they topped their qualifying group and conceded not too many goals in qualifying, was really expecting a much better show from them over the full 90 minutes.

naitkris

Originally posted by eirebhoy
Ask most Sweden fans who their best player is and he'd come out on top which says a lot considering they have Ibrahimovic and Ljunberg in the team.

Sweden's current best player is Henrik Larsson without a doubt!!!

Ste-

I thought Bulgaria were a bit unlucky to lose by five goals.
Untill Sweden got their first I had thought Bulgaria might clinch it.
Wasn't overly impressed with Sweden except Larsson's second.

naitkris

they were saying this, one of the commentators, that the difference between Larsson and some of Italy's "stars" is that Larsson is really willing to put the hard work in, defend when needed and not care if he doesn't score but that the team as a whole does well. compare Larsson's play today to Vieri's play today and you'll understand my point. Vieri was not putting the work in for his team and then blaming his teammates for not giving him the ball as he's always up front expecting the ball, but rarely working for it...

Dewey

I'm surprised Sweden won 5-0 but not surprised the great Larrson got 2 great goals.
He was brilliant in the second half and took he goals really well. I have always thought of him as a world class player. Bulgaria did well going forward but cant defend for ****. Lungberg did very well. This group i think is the most interesting at the moment. it might go down to countrys getting to the next round on goal difference.

I have Sweden to win Euro 2004 outright and eachway on Larrson to be top scorer so its looking good at the moment.

therecklessone

Originally posted by eirebhoy
Ask most Sweden fans who their best player is and he'd come out on top which says a lot considering they have Ibrahimovic and Ljunberg in the team.

Considering the ecstatic text message I got from my lunatic mate in Stockholm when he announced he would be available for selection, I reckon you're right there eirebhoy.

naitkris

Originally posted by therecklessone
Considering the ecstatic text message I got from my lunatic mate in Stockholm when he announced he would be available for selection, I reckon you're right there eirebhoy.

lol, yeah us Swedish fans are bit crazy sometimes. was at Sweden's Euro 2004 qualifying match at home against San Marino in Göteborg last summer and the atmosphere for that game, although a small match, was awesome.

might book tickets to Portugal if Sweden get out of the group and if there are any match tickets left. i can just imagine the party the Swedish fans are having in Lisbon tonight after that 5-0 win... i wouldn't want to miss such a party if Sweden are going to go far.

looking at the fans on TV there seems to be a lot of Swedish and Danish fans who made it to Portugal. Italy on the other hand had far fewer supporters there it seemed which is strange for a much larger country like Italy.

thejollyrodger

That header was the bestest Ive seen in a major competition in agess... possibly one for goal of the tournament

LizardKing

Originally posted by thejollyrodger
That header was the bestest Ive seen in a major competition in agess... possibly one for goal of the tournament

I Agree .. Top Class Header ... Odds on Larrson getting golden boot slashed now ..

Stiltskin

looking at the fans on TV there seems to be a lot of Swedish and Danish fans who made it to Portugal. Italy on the other hand had far fewer supporters there it seemed which is strange for a much larger country like Italy.

I think that could be put down to cockiness. You find the same in the GAA championships, where the larger teams' fans don't bother attending 'the formalities' of the earlier rounds. (Kerry in particular). Keep your eye on ebay;)

eirebhoy

Originally posted by naitkris
looking at the fans on TV there seems to be a lot of Swedish and Danish fans who made it to Portugal. Italy on the other hand had far fewer supporters there it seemed which is strange for a much larger country like Italy.

It's like that for every major tournament. The French were outnumbered by the English 4 to 1. There will probably be more neutral's than actual supporters at tonights match between Holland and Germany. Ireland always seem to have more supporters than their opponents for a match on neutral ground.

Pepe LeFrits

Very flattering scoreline for Sweden, but I suppose that's what clinical finishing gets you. My main concern with them is their centre midfield, they weren't great last night and will need to be better against Italy (obviously) and Denmark (who were very impressive in that area yesterday). Elsewhere, they are very impressive. Good solid defense, excellent wide players, and 2 top class strikers. If they can go up a gear they will very hard to beat.

naitkris

being Swedish and living in Cork i thought it was quite strange to see an Irish flag at the Sweden v Bulgaria match but not only that, but it had "CORK CITY" on it!

nice to see the Irish supporters are having a good time over in Portugal, real pity Ireland aren't in the tournament as Ireland is definitly one of the best 16 national teams in Europe judging on the teams performance in the last year.

Harry2001

Originally posted by naitkris
being Swedish and living in Cork i thought it was quite strange to see an Irish flag at the Sweden v Bulgaria match but not only that, but it had "CORK CITY" on it!

nice to see the Irish supporters are having a good time over in Portugal, real pity Ireland aren't in the tournament as Ireland is definitly one of the best 16 national teams in Europe judging on the teams performance in the last year.

I seen that flag at the Switzerland v Croatia game too (I think it was that game)

eirebhoy

Originally posted by kaids
My main concern with them is their centre midfield, they weren't great last night and will need to be better against Italy (obviously) and Denmark (who were very impressive in that area yesterday). Elsewhere, they are very impressive. Good solid defense, excellent wide players

They seem to play in a diamond formation.

---

Svensson

---

Ljunberg

---

Nilsson

---

Linderoth

---

I don't think that works too well tbh.

Bulgaria had 57% possession and 11 shots. The score flattered Sweden but they could certainly play better than they did.