Evening Z was here, the one we never thought would come.
The one when Zlatan Ibrahimovic was to play football for the Swedish national team after more than four years. Zlatan 2.0.
The comeback only ended with a convulsive 1-0 win. Zlatan and all outfield players can thank Kristoffer Nordfeldt for that. His save on Levan Shengelia’s great save in the 82nd minute saved much, much more than three points.
The football matches that feel the most and best before kick-off are those where the atmosphere is built up from a thousand and a thousand in the stands.
This evening brought a mood that was built up by a single player on the field. The stands were empty.
The absolute best thing about watching Zlatan Ibrahimovic play football has always been that you did not know what was going to happen.
It was that excitement and mood that would once again spread from a national team that has already spread lots of warm, soft feelings. With Zlatan, it would be even more spice to the emotions.
Zlatan returns to a different national team than the one he left. It is a team where the offensive is the great strength and where the offensive options are many and good.
Sweden is – as it is called in football Swedish – a forward-leaning team.
The danger for a forward-leaning team is that there can be problems with balance.
Sweden had big problems against Georgia.
Sweden was hollow without a ball and stressed with. The first ball press was toothless and the rest of the defense offered surfaces and gaps.
And his own ball possession was spasmodic.
Seen over 90 minutes was goalkeeper Kristoffer Nordfeldt (regular Robin Olsen has had injury problems and rested) the team’s best player.
Another Kristoffer – Olsson – who would be Sweden’s most important game builder did not have many rights and Dejan Kulusevski often ran around without thought. Other offensive players did not move at all.
It was as if the future Kulusevski felt that he was running on borrowed time and the feeling was not unjustified.
Because when I looked a few rows below me in the stands, the replacements were sitting. The offensive options are many, the competition is fierce.
Federation captain Janne Andersson has already announced that he will rotate more in the squad when the starting elves are to be taken out.
Therefore, it was not just a World Cup qualifier that had begun. It was just as much the players’ qualifiers to play more playing time in this summer’s European Championships. In Kosovo on Sunday, the second chance.
In the qualifiers for the European Championships we are still waiting for, Georgia played 0-0 against Denmark and Ireland at home and lost only 0-1 against Switzerland at home.
We knew that the team could park a wide bus in their own penalty area. It was more surprising how easily the team threatened Sweden with their adjustments and methodical passing games.
Had the former national team Zlatan had been on the plane he had rotted that nothing was happening. Started walking down the track, tried to solve everything myself and sighed and scolded his teammates.
This version peppered and pushed and knew where he did the most good. The closer to the goal the better.
When current team captain Sebastian Larsson screwed a post towards the penalty area, Zlatan was where he should be and showed how to do it. He folded his upper body backwards and let the ball die in a cushioning on the chest and played obliquely inwards to Viktor Claesson who made it 1-0.
Balance, gaze and ball technique. It looked easy for Zlatan. If that were the case, more people would be doing this all the time.
Zlatan played 83 minutes and was perfectly okay. His attacking partner Alexander Isak was the team’s best outfielder.
When Zlatan previously played in the national team, there were players who were stressed by his demands.
Now players behave stressed due to the demands of the competition.
When the second half was marked of the same stressed, lame and disharmonious Swedish games, I saw something I had been naive enough to forget.
I have seen all Swedish offensive alternatives as a luxury for national team captain Janne Andersson. This match showed that there was more problem than luxury in the luxury problem.
But what this match also showed is that Andersson has more good goalkeepers than regular Robin Olsen.
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