Sweden 4 England 2
Sweden 4 England 2, The Friends Arena Stadium, International Friendly Match, November 14, 2012. Despite a 4-2 defeat, England boss Roy Hodgson was pleased with the effort that his team showed against Sweden. The man of the match, however, was Zlatan Ibrahimovic who recorded all the four goals for The Blue and Yellow in their win over The Three Lions.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic crowned his display with an amazing overhead-kick from 30 yards out in the 90th minute of the international friendly game. After scoring his first goal for Sweden in a 3-0 victory against Azerbaijan in a World Cup Qualifying fixture at Rasunda Stadium on the 7th of October 2001, the striker had so far managed to notch up 39 goals in 85 international appearances for the country of his birth. Roy Hodgson: “I took the risk to give debutants a chance, obviously that will open things up, and I was hoping that we would hold out. I thought our passing and movement was good and when we took the 2–1 lead it was a correct assessment of what we had seen on the field. I thought the debutants were good, all of them did fine and I am certainly a wiser man than I was before this game. We were undone by some individual brilliance and maybe a bit of inexperience.” Sweden Team: Andreas Isaksson, Andreas Granqvist, Mikael Lustig, Jonas Olsson, Sebastian Larsson, Martin Olsson, Rasmus Elm, Alex Kacaniklic, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mathias Ranegie, Kim Kallstrom. Substitutes: Mikael Antonsson, Pontus Jansson, Jiloan Hamad, Samuel Holmen, Behrang Safari, Tobias Sana, Anders Svensson, Pontus Wernbloom, Marcus Berg, Par Hansson. England Team: Joe Hart, Steven Caulker, Gary Cahill, Glen Johnson, Ashley Young, Leighton Baines, Tom Cleverley, Steven Gerrard , Raheem Sterling, Danny Welbeck, Leon Osman. Substitutes: Carl Jenkinson, Ryan Shawcross, Ryan Bertrand, Tom Huddlestone, Wilfried Zaha, Phil Jagielka, Jack Wilshere, Daniel Sturridge, Fraser Forster, John Ruddy.
England Quickfacts
England overcame Sweden by 4-0 in an international friendly fixture at Rasunda Stadium on the 17th of May 1937 courtesy of a hat-trick by Freddie Steele and one goal from Joe Johnson.
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