Since Thursday’s World Cup qualifier is played away, in Gori northwest of Tbilisi, it is Georgia who owns the event and decides on a possible major event at the arena.
The Swedish national team will be told whether there are any such plans until Thursday’s match meeting, but had already on Wednesday decided to make a mark against the Russian invasion of Ukraine – in the form of pins on arrival for the match and captain’s armband in Ukrainian colors.
– Then we have a major demonstration at home on Tuesday (match against Ireland), says the national team’s press officer Fredrik Madestam at a digital press conference from Georgia.
National team defender Amanda Ilestedt says that it is special to be geographically so close to Russia:
– But I feel very safe with the security we have around the national team.
– Federation captain Peter Gerhardsson.
Photo: Jonas Ekströmer / TT
PSG back set on the bench most recently Sweden met Georgia, but has otherwise played every single minute in the World Cup qualifiers. In Gothenburg this autumn, world number two Sweden won “only” 4-0 against the 125th-ranked guests – despite 40 finishes against Georgia’s zero.
How did you talk about inefficiency?
– If you look at a statistical expression, there is something called “regression towards the mean”, which means that if something goes very much in one direction, it tends to go in the other direction next time, says national team captain Peter Gerhardsson.
– So it would surprise me very much if we have 40 finishes and only score four goals this time as well.
A total of four points in the matches against Georgia and Ireland means that the World Cup ticket is secured with one qualifying match left.
– It would be very nice, says Ilestedt.
Wednesday’s training in Tbilisi was attended by all players, including Real Madrid star Kosovar Asllani, who is a question mark for the starting eleven after an injury period.
– But I thought she was an exclamation point today. She looked alert, says Gerhardsson.
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