Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Heja Sverige!

Swedes - can't beat them at football (for 38 years), and their men look better in their underpants....

So England go through as leaders of Group B, despite the 2-2 draw against Sweden, which was definitely a game of two-halves. We were in an English pub in Stockholm, which promised to play The Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen every time an English goal went in...

Anyway, first half, we lost Michael Owen who agonisingly twisted his knee - Svennis brought on the 9ft Crouchie to partner Shrek. England had a lot of possession, lots of shots on goal and Joe Cole played a fantastic dribbling game, scoring a magnificent goal for England to lead at half time. Cue lots of jumping around to God Save the Queen...

Second half, England seemed to have lost the plot (as usual) and the Swedes equalised and were all over the England goal, hitting the post several times.

Svennis took Rooney off (who kicked off his boots in a tantrum) and brought on Stevie G - a timely substitution as Gerrard cleared off the line and then scored what we thought was the winning goal. Scouse Power!

However, it wasn't to be - in the 90th minute, the Swedes equalised and again, England were unable to beat Sweden - 38 years and counting!

Still it was a great night and experience - no trouble at all, despite the mixed Swedish and English fans in a packed out pub. Me and a couple of colleagues were interviewed before the match and apparently appeared on local Swedish TV. The guy at the hotel recognised me this morning from my 'TV slot' but I didn't stop to give him my autograph.. ;-)

I asked in a previous post whether the Swedes would get emotional over this game? The answer is yes, they got all emotional - they acted like they had won the World Cup itself, they were running round the streets singing and some had jumped on top of buses, but it was still all very .... nice and safe, I didn't feel that I was in any danger at all walking through the city.

I guess this Saturday, I'll be shouting "Heja Sverige!" when Sweden meet hosts Germany.

3 comments:

  1. Objectionable content! Bordering on the pornographic and likely to give me nightmares until Christmas. I'm reporting you to the internet police.

    You can run but you can't hide.

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  2. Great picture! :)

    I feel for Michael Owen, I cringed when watching the replay of how he landed-ouch!

    Joe Cole had an awesome game, what a goal!

    Rooney made me laugh, just like my little boy when I tell him it's time to come in from playing with his friends lol!

    Am looking forward to the Ecuador game! :)

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  3. Thank you for your support against The Hosts...guess it wasn´t enought. So now we swedes still are emotional...but not acting as we won the world cup ;) Guess I now have to hope that at least one single swede will win...so: Go England!

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