The Swedish team is in crisis, Cristiano Ronaldo made history again and the football dwarf experienced a miracle in Zenica.
Premier League speedster Dejan Kulusevski frustrated after the loss to Austria. CHRISTIAN BROWN
Head coach of the Swedish national football team Jan Andersson is under a lot of pressure for his job. On Tuesday evening, the Blue and Yellows lost to the main opponent of their group Austria 0-2 and are now seven points away from their rival.
In between, Belgium is the clear favorite in the group, which, like Austria, has not lost a single match. Belgium previously defeated Sweden 3–0.
Aftonbladet soccer reporter Johanna Fränden describes the current situation of the men’s national team as “the darkest of modern times”. Sweden must beat Austria and preferably Belgium in their next matches, but also hope that Estonia or Azerbaijan manage to shake things up.
The situation may be different in a few months, because Sweden and Austria will meet on September 12.
Belgium’s team of feuding star players showed no signs of faltering as they won 3-0 in Estonia. In the spring Champions League final, he was a warrior of bad luck Romelu Lukaku scored two goals. The powerful top man has succeeded in scoring in each of his last 15 European Championship qualifying games.
Fränden adds that Andersson should finish his qualification project, after which another one will be raised in his place.
Ronaldo decided
“Wow!” Cristiano Ronaldo scored the winning goal at the end of the match. EPA / AOP
In Iceland, Portugal was at the pinnacle when the game was still goalless in the 89th minute. Then a man known to everyone came to the rescue Cristiano Ronaldo. The soccer megastar was defeated before the game in honor of 200 national team matches, and at the end of the evening, the man took the spotlight for himself by scoring the winning goal from close range.
Ronaldo made his A national team debut in October 2003. Now, after almost 20 years and 123 national team goals, he is leading Portugal to the European Championship as the first ever player to reach 200 games in the men’s national team.
Portugal dominates Group J with a clean sheet. In addition to the Iceland win, Portugal’s championship dreams were helped by the rough meltdown of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In Zenica, which has become familiar even to the cheerleaders, the Bosnians suffered a surprise 0-2 loss to Luxembourg. The small football country on the rise had previously knocked out Liechtenstein, so it is now on a two-game winning streak in the qualifiers. It is the first time in the European Championship qualifiers since 1995.
With less than 650,000 inhabitants, Luxembourg has beaten Ireland, Turkey, Montenegro and Slovakia in recent years.
The situation in E-block also became complicated. Moldova, which belongs to the category of small countries with Luxembourg, beat at home Robert Lewandowski starred Poland 3–2. At the same time, Moldova rose to third place in its group and two points away from the number one country, the Czech Republic. Albania is second. The Faroe Islands also play in the group.