Presenting the announcement of the match of the 1/8 finals of the 2018 World Cup between Sweden and Switzerland.
The Northern European team was the candidate for the second place in the group, where the clear favorite was Germany. The Swedes lost the Germans, but the other two games won and took first place in the group.
Opponents in 1/8 they were not the most star-studded, but as strong as the Swedes themselves, the Swiss. They in the first round took the points from the Brazilians, after which it was incredibly interesting, as for the development of the events, the match was beaten by the Serbs, and in the last round they completed the draw started with Costa Rica.
To full-time confrontation, the teams are suitable with personnel problems. Sweden will not be able to play Sebastian Larsson, for whom, due to injury, this World Cup can already be completed, but against Switzerland, he would not have played and because of the disqualification. In the center of the field, he is expected to be replaced by Gustav Svensson. The Indal, Classon and Lustig can skip the quarterfinals if they get through and earn the yellow cards in this match.
Vladimir Petkovic does not exactly play two players: Lichtsteiner and Cher will be serving a disqualification for busting yellow cards. Change them on the field can Lang and Djourou. Stephen Zuber has minor damage and if the coach decides to save him, he may miss the match against Sweden. The Swiss, like the opponent, three players on the verge of disqualification - Zakaria, Behrami and Shakiri.
Team Sweden, as expected, the team that left the first place in the group seems to be the favorite. In addition, Switzerland will play without a pair of major defenders. However, the "reds" have already shown how they can play against favorites and the fight in the match promises to be interesting.
Approximate compositions:.
Sweden: Olsen - Lustig, Lindeleph, Granquist, Augustinson - Claesson, Svensson, Ekdal, Forsberg - Berg, Toivonen Switzerland: Sommer - Lang, Juru, Akandji, Rodriguez - Behrami, Jaka - Shakiri, Jemali, Embolo - Gavranovich Interesting facts:.
- 27 matches have been between teams, but have never played in major tournaments before.
- the Swedes will hold the 50th match at the World Championships (18V, 13H, 18P).
- Sweden has never won two consecutive games at world championships (not counting a penalty shootout) outside of Sweden.
- Forsberg and Berg inflicted 57% of the Swedish team at the 2018 World Cup (21 of 37), but none scored.
- Only Iran and Iceland have a worse percentage of transmission accuracy than Sweden - 72.8%.
- Switzerland has not scored in the playoffs World Cup since 1954.
- In the 1/8 finals Switzerland came out in 1994, 2006 and 2014, losing in all matches of Spain, Ukraine and Argentina.
- Switzerland lost only 1 time in the last 25 games (17B, 7H).
forecast 1: 1.