Caroline Seger was not ready to start and Stina Blackstenius has had a previous foot injury. It kept the two stars out of the eleven against Finland, a match where Lina Hurtig saved Sweden in the final minutes. The injury situation is now better before the fifth qualifying match where Slovakia is the opposition.
– We have had two training sessions down in Malmö and all 24 players have trained fully. Hanna Bennison has been ill and is now back. Stina (Blackstenius) and Seger trained fully the day after the match in Gothenburg. It is a very good location and we have 24 players who will be available if nothing happens during the day. Since the number of minutes you never know.
How do you see Blackstenius’ opportunity to play, start or jump in?
– We shall see. The medical team is allowed to say what they think is a suitable playing time, then I talk to the player and then decide what will be best, whether it will be a jump-in or as a starting player. I think we last showed that we have good alternatives and we have that tomorrow as well. Only I’m interested in the final eleven. The players want to start, but I want to win the football matches and can sometimes think about who is better at jumping in than starting.
Fridolina Rolfö accounted for the match’s only goal against Slovakia in September. Sweden met an extremely defensive team where the areas became few. Peter Gerhardsson sees many differences before Thursday’s meeting, compared to when the teams met then.
– We came directly from the Olympics and it was a different type of resistance than we met there. Other parts of our game were needed. There were not as many counterattacks as we could use during the Olympics. Several of our players who play in professional leagues were not playing the matches yet. Linked to that, the training we had had looked sharper.
– We defended very well. I do not think Slovakia had a chance to score. When it comes to efficiency and the creation of goal chances, with deep lead play and edge play, this is something we have worked very hard on. These are the parts we need to do better than last time against Slovakia, but I think there have been positive tendencies.
Is there something you felt you needed to work on?
– Absolutely. When we played away they were very low. There was very little in surface in playing area two, so it made it be the edges or early deep lead play. We must be able to take advantage of that now.
How Sweden chooses to form remains to be seen. So far, Gerhardsson has used 19 different starting players in the four qualifying matches. The match starts at 19:00.
–
