Sweden 1-0 Slovakia: Emil Forsberg makes no mistake to score past Martin Dubravka from the penalty spot – and piles the pressure on Group E favourites Spain as Swedes move to four points
Slovakia deserve this, the jeopardy of a final game shootout. A refusal to play cost them dear against a team who, for so long, appeared to have no chance of scoring.
Sweden did in the end, via an Emil Forsberg penalty 13 minutes from time, which opens this group up and now applies gentle pressure on Spain.
There was only one team really bothered about forcing a result towards the end of this and perhaps the Slovaks will look back and rue how this panned out. They barely left their own half until the eventual winner, happy to sit on the point that would surely have taken them through.
Yet there really had been nothing to fear in Sweden’s ranks, safe for Real Sociedad’s Alexander Isak. They dropped deeper and deeper, allowed Isak to take control, and the consequence was a defeat that had appeared so unlikely an hour previous.
Isak engineered the penalty, dropping off the front and slipping in substitute Robin Quaison. Out rushed Martin Dubravka, felling Quaison and RB Leipzig’s Forsberg did the rest. It felt harsh on Dubravka, who had completed a stunning one-handed save to tip over Ludwig Augustinsson’s header, as Sweden unexpectedly turned the screw.
Slovakia are obviously the more adept footballing team, although their need was nowhere near as great as Sweden – and once you are in that mindset, it is difficult to shake.
The onus was on the Scandinavians to make a fist of this, an early-afternoon fixture that even the most ardent of major tournament junkies weighing up whether committing two hours of a Friday to watching is really worth their while.
In fairness, Sweden did. Eventually, anyway. The highlight of a turgid first half had been Marek Hamsik falling over inside the box, or perhaps Juraj Kucka shinning into the sparsely populated St Petersburg stands. A game nobody wanted to win, seemingly. A game nobody seemed to even want the round thing they play with.
Something changed at the break in the Sweden dressing room. A bit more urgency and positivity. As ever, they rely on a striker who is far superior to everybody around him. At this tournament, it is Isak, the 20-year-old who has been scoring more than a goal every other start in La Liga over two years, rather than Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Isak should have left with a seventh at international level, going close on three occasions, the last of which after taking four defenders out of the game when cutting inside. But such was Slovakia’s impotence, Sweden needed just the one and will fancy themselves to reach the European knockouts for the first time in 17 years given their defensive solidity.
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