Sweden star player: Olof Mellberg
How are Sweden shaping up?
It’s looking good. Overall, from the strikers all the way back, we worked hard against Brazil [in the recent friendly] and didn’t give them a lot of space, and they didn’t really have that many chances. They had a few free-kicks and a couple of crosses but overall it was a tight game and I think probably a draw would have been a more realistic result [Brazil won 1-0].
What’s your target for the finals?
Well, we will just give it a go. We’ve done well for quite a long time now. This will be our fifth consecutive finals and we’ve done well in previous ones and got through the group stage and been a little bit unlucky on a couple of occasions. It would obviously be nice to take another step and win a couple more games. Always in a championship the first target is to qualify from the group stage.
Does Greece’s achievement in 2004 show that anybody can win it?
Obviously for the smaller teams you need a little bit of everything. You need to play well, you need your players in good form and you need to be a little bit lucky as well. Everything needs to work for you because you’ve got the big nations, the big favourites, ahead of you. You know it’s tough but Greece proved it can be done.
Is it fair to say that there is not one outstanding team in these finals?
Maybe, but you’ve still got the three or four teams who are favourites, and if you look back in history one of those teams is the most likely to win it. But while it is tough for the smaller nations, the results in the qualifying campaign proved that the gap is maybe narrower between all the nations than it used to be.
Who will win the title?
I don’t know, it’s too tight to call.
Does it help you that Sweden aren’t among the favourites?
Yes, it might help, but you put pressure on yourself anyway. Also, the expectations are quite high back in Sweden because of the results we have achieved at past finals.
So people back home wouldn’t be happy if you played well but didn’t progress from the group?
I don’t think they would, because we have reached the quarter-finals on quite a few occasions in previous championships so people expect that again.
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