But the veteran Swedish forward hasn’t exactly set the tournament alight so far, and he was unable to find a way bast the formidable Azzurri defence, as Sweden lost their second game of the tournament to a late victor from Eder.
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Italy, beaten 4-0 by Spain in the 2012 Euro final, are hoping to make amends for their second successive first-round exit from the World Cup, in Brazil two years ago. “Our reality is to try and play well every match and we’ll see at the end what we’re capable of”.
“This Italy side proved it has cojones. With how physical he is, you’ve got to try to limit him to as little as possible, and we did well in that respect”.
But the man who looks set to join Manchester United struggled against the notoriously tight Italian defence, and failed again in his bid to become the first player to score in four successive European Championship finals.
His 11 goals in their qualifying campaign – three in the two-legged play-off win over Denmark – bought them a ticket to France.
“They have found different ways to win: convincingly against Belgium, unconvincingly versus Sweden”.
Italy have not created many chances during the match which was surprisingly dominated by Sweden.
Sweden had the edge as far as general play was concerned, with Italy prepared to sit back in their own half, but only a John Guidetti volley – which was sent skywards – was their reward for all of their effort in trying to create a clear-cut opportunity. A Conte team is strong in defence and works constantly, day to day.
“Of course I’m disappointed, as are the players at this moment in time”, Sweden coach Erik Hamren said.
He’s playing his cards absolutely right, too. If they are wary of contact, that could open up space for Ibrahimovic. But what they do have is a world-class backline that is showing it can shut down to very different but two unsafe groups of attackers thus far.
During this tournament we have learned to wait for the late goal and sure enough it made all the difference in Toulouse. “We were ready for this game and we know how quickly things change in football, so we always need to be ready and we have to have the mentality we had today for future matches”.
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Having masterminded victory over the Belgians, Italy boss Conte’s tactics were completely neutralised during the first 45 minutes in Toulouse, and his side appeared unsettled as a result.
