Martin Olsson’s Sweden hold a slender advantage after the first leg of their Euro 2016 play-off tie against rivals Denmark in Stockholm on Saturday evening.
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Denmark last won the UEFA European Championship in 1992, and made it as far as the qualifying round in 2008.
He bent a fantastic 25-yard free-kick around the wall and inside Schmeichel’s near post to give Sweden a three-goal cushion and a second away goal.
Berg should really have put the home side in front just after the half-hour mark after Ibrahimovic played him through but the striker dragged his shot across goal and wide.
And though late goals from Yussuf Poulsen and Jannik Vestergaard cancelled out Ibrahimovic’s strikes, it proved too little too late for Olsen’s side, and the veteran manager has now confirmed he is stepping down. “We have many young players, but also older and more experienced ones”.
Paris Saint-Germain’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic admitted it had been “very difficult” to focus on Sweden’s UEFA EURO 2016 play-off with Denmark following the terrorist attacks in the French capital.
Ibrahimovic converted a second half penalty after Emil Forsberg had scored his first worldwide goal on the stroke of half-time. “This is just fabulous”.
Earlier Ukraine took a comfortable 2-0 lead over Slovenia in Lviv as Andrei Yarmolenko and Yevhen Seleznyov scored in either half of a bad tempered clash at the packed 65,000-seat Lviv Arena.
Ibrahimovic hit back tonight, with this jibe: “They wanted me to retire, I sent their whole country into retirement”.
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That will spare UEFA from invoking its current rule which blocks teams from the neighbouring nations being drawn together during their ongoing conflict.
