by Guest » 08 Mar 2024, 19:58
Guest wrote: ↑05 Mar 2024, 14:00
Sweden has got the group of death but there's a good chance they can get the second spot at least. A lot of fresh faces are very promising + the deadweight that is Caroline Seger as well as Hedvig Lindahl aren't here anymore.
Fish n Chips as well as Croissant fans are underestimating them so that will work in their favor too.
Of course it’s a very tough group, it will be tough for Sweden to take a direct qualifing spot for the Euros, which they are used to. And that’s because of the 3rd place nations league finish, which gave us this draw. The nations league is very unforgiving in that way, there’s no inertia, like if these groups had been drawn from Fifa ranking. Sweden is 4th in Europe, so would then have avoided Spain, France and England, and could only have drawn one of Germany and the Netherlands.
But I don’t think the draw is that bad for Sweden. We get top teams coming to Sweden to play us which is great for publicity and ticket sales, and then if they finish 3rd (which is likely imo) there will be playoffs, they aren’t out. First a League C team and then most likely a League B team. It should be no problem. The worst case scenario is Portugal or Scotland in the second playoff game, which they’ll avoid with a good seeding.
There’s every opportunity to qualify directly, and if they don’t they don’t have to schedule friendlies, that’s how I look at it.
The most important thing is to not underestimate Ireland and think that the lowest we could finish is 3rd. Like we may have done a little in the first NL, there was so much focus on Spain that we took for granted a bit beating Italy and Switzerland. Sweden had a 1-1 draw against Ireland in the world cup qualifiers just the other year iirc. They are not a bad team. And we don’t wanna finish 4th, as even though there are still Euros playoffs the 4th placed team also gets relegated to League B ahead of next year’s NL.
[quote=Guest post_id=5700026 time=1709647209]
Sweden has got the group of death but there's a good chance they can get the second spot at least. A lot of fresh faces are very promising + the deadweight that is Caroline Seger as well as Hedvig Lindahl aren't here anymore.
Fish n Chips as well as Croissant fans are underestimating them so that will work in their favor too.
[/quote]
Of course it’s a very tough group, it will be tough for Sweden to take a direct qualifing spot for the Euros, which they are used to. And that’s because of the 3rd place nations league finish, which gave us this draw. The nations league is very unforgiving in that way, there’s no inertia, like if these groups had been drawn from Fifa ranking. Sweden is 4th in Europe, so would then have avoided Spain, France and England, and could only have drawn one of Germany and the Netherlands.
But I don’t think the draw is that bad for Sweden. We get top teams coming to Sweden to play us which is great for publicity and ticket sales, and then if they finish 3rd (which is likely imo) there will be playoffs, they aren’t out. First a League C team and then most likely a League B team. It should be no problem. The worst case scenario is Portugal or Scotland in the second playoff game, which they’ll avoid with a good seeding.
There’s every opportunity to qualify directly, and if they don’t they don’t have to schedule friendlies, that’s how I look at it.
The most important thing is to not underestimate Ireland and think that the lowest we could finish is 3rd. Like we may have done a little in the first NL, there was so much focus on Spain that we took for granted a bit beating Italy and Switzerland. Sweden had a 1-1 draw against Ireland in the world cup qualifiers just the other year iirc. They are not a bad team. And we don’t wanna finish 4th, as even though there are still Euros playoffs the 4th placed team also gets relegated to League B ahead of next year’s NL.