Football

What could Sweden’s starting line-up look like against the Czech Republic?

On Thursday, the Czech national team will play a barrage match against the home Swedes at Friends Arena in Stockholm. For Czech fans, this is one of the highlights of this year’s football season. What line-up could the Swedes field in this important match?

Published

2 years ago

22. 3. 2022

Jiří Lehnert

Swedish coach Janne Andersson usually uses a 4-4-2 system, with the central midfielders usually being more retracted to the fullbacks and thus performing more defensive tasks. We have already informed you about the Swedish team’s nomination on our website here.

Goalkeeper

Janne Andersson has three goalkeepers at his disposal – Andreas Linde (Fürth/Germany), Kristoffer Nordfeldt (AIK Stockholm) and Robin Olsen (Aston Villa/England).

Olsen has been the Swedish national team’s number one in previous matches and has played 53 games for the national team. However, the problem with this goalkeeper is that he sits on the substitutes’ bench at Aston Villa.

He offers Andreas Linde, who is the keeper of the Bundesliga’s Greuther Fürth. He transferred to the team that currently occupies the last place in the highest German competition with only fifteen points, where he transferred in January from Norwegian Molde.

He has scored fourteen goals in six games and kept a clean sheet once. He has played only one friendly match for the national team, five years ago against Slovakia (6: 0).

Kristoffer Nordfeldt, playing for AIK Stockholm, played two clean sheets in the World Cup qualifying group in Qatar (home against Georgia 1: 0, away against Kosovo 3: 0). He has experience from previous stints in the British Isles, Turkey and Holland. He has played 15 matches for the national team. However, the disadvantage for him is that the Swedish league has not started yet (spring-autumn system). He lacks playing experience.

Robin Olsen will probably be among the three goalposts of the Swedish team again. At first glance, it looks like the goalkeeper position may be a problematic position for the Swedish national team.

Defence

Under Janne Andersson, the Swedes are playing a classic four-man defence. Its biggest support is undoubtedly the stopper and captain Victor Lindelöf, who wears the jersey of Manchester United, where he regularly appears in the starting line-up.

Another stalwart of the Swedish defence is right back Emil Krafth, who has been a regular on the right side of defence for Newcastle United, especially in the new year. He has been in the starting line-up for the last five matches in the World Cup qualification. However, he cannot play against the Czech Republic because of a card penalty. He will probably be replaced by Daniel Sundgren.

Ludwig Augustinsson, the left back of Spanish team FC Sevilla, has not missed a minute in the last five matches of the Swedish national team. He often rotates between the substitutes’ bench and the starting line-up for Sevilla. However, he tends to come on during the game. However, the last two games of the Spanish club we could see him on the pitch from the first minutes.

However, the question mark in the Swedish defensive four remains with the second stopper. Alongside Lindelöf, Marcus Danielson from Chinese club Dalian, Filip Helander from Glasgow Rangers and Joakim Nilsson from Bielefeld in Germany have started in previous qualifying matches. Carl Starfelt from Celtic Scotland is also on the Swedish roster.

Helander is coming off a long-term injury and lacks playing experience. He only played half-time against FC Dundee in the spring.

Joakim Nilsson hasn’t played the last two games for his parent club due to a coronavirus infection. His club from Bielefeld is currently in the relegation zone of the German top flight. Marcus Danielson plays in the Chinese league, the quality of which is a big question mark.

Personally, I would guess that the Swedish coach will deploy Celtic Glasgow defender Carl Starfelt, who is a regular for his team. Moreover, Celtic leads the Scottish league, so Starfelt will certainly not lack a healthy self-confidence.

Although Lindelöf and Starfelt are not the tallest defenders in the Swedish squad (both are 187 cm), given the absence of sniper Patrik Schick in the Czech team (191 cm), height should not be such a problem for the Swedes. And that’s even considering the assumption that Jan Kuchta, who has other strengths than his height, will probably start at the top for the Czech team.

However, we must not forget one of the best headers in the English Premier League, Tomáš Souček (192 cm). However, the question is whether the Czech midfielder will be able to get good header opportunities into the Swedish midfielder’s space during the game.

Backup

The defensive midfield pairing is regularly made up of Kristoffer Olsson from Anderlecht in Belgium and Albin Ekdal from Sampdoria Genoa in Italy. Ekdal is a regular in the starting line-up for his club, which cannot be said for Olsson, who has been popping up in Anderlecht games lately more for the last minutes of the game.

An alternative for Olsson could be Mattias Svanberg from Bologna in Italy, where he is a regular. However, Olsson has more experience from national team matches.

On the wings of the Swedes, Emil Forsberg from Leipzig and Viktor Claesson, who left Krasnodar from Russia due to the situation in Ukraine and is not playing for any club at the moment, are the regulars. That’s why the option of young Swedish talent from Manchester United, Anthony Elanga, is offered as a replacement. He is starting to make a name for himself at the English big club in the second half of the season and is in great form.

Right winger Emil Forsberg is a regular in the German Leipzig in the Bundesliga and in the Champions League in the autumn. It would be a surprise if he didn’t feature in the starting line-up against the Czech side.

Attack

Coach Andersson will miss Sweden’s biggest star Zlatan Ibrahimovic due to a card penalty against the Czech Republic.

Alexander Isak from Real Sociedad, Spain, is likely to play in the attack, where he is not guaranteed a place in the starting line-up, but regularly gets plenty of space on the pitch. This is also due to the fact that Real Sociedad often uses a system with one classic striker.

Given his size (192 cm), the Swedish coach will certainly want to use Alexander Isak to defend standard situations, especially the aforementioned Tomas Soucek.

The offensive midfielder Dejan Kulusevski from Tottenham Hotspur London is also in the Swedish national team and will probably operate closer to the Swedish back line.

Conclusion

According to previous matches, coach Janne Andersson relies mostly on the same team skeleton and system of play. So it is unlikely that he would make any major change in the team’s skeleton just for such an important match. Apart from Ibrahimovic, he is also not missing any key players. However, we will be surprised what kind of line-up the Swedes will actually have on Thursday.