June 21 (Reuters) – One of \u2060the biggest holidays in the Swedish calendar got off to a great start on Friday \u2060as the nation celebrated Midsummer’s Eve, but their team’s 5-1 World Cup thrashing by the \u200cNetherlands left the entire country with a cruel soccer hangover.<\/p>\n
With the game kicking off at 1900 local time in Stockholm on Saturday, around 10,000 fans had gathered to watch at the city’s Olympic Stadium, but Brian Brobbey’s opening goal after five minutes \u200bburst the Swedish bubble, and the party atmosphere quickly ebbed away.<\/p>\n
“We \u2060are disappointed. It’s so bad – no will, \u2060no passion, nothing, it’s like a regular game,” Sweden fan Robin Mert told broadcaster TV4.<\/p>\n
Things got a \u2060lot \u200cworse as the Dutch rattled in five goals, Brobbey and Cody Gakpo both scoring twice. The only silver lining for the Swedes, who beat Tunisia by the same scoreline in their opener, \u2060came in the form of a second-half goal from substitute Anthony \u200bElanga.<\/p>\n
“There are sour feelings,” striker \u200cViktor Gyokeres told reporters. “Everyone has to be better at everything.”<\/p>\n
Ronald Koeman’s side identified a weakness \u2060at the heart of \u200bthe Swedish defence, repeatedly getting to the byline and driving the ball across the face of goal between the backline and the goalkeeper, and Brobbey and Gakpo made the most of that supply to net the first three \u2060goals.<\/p>\n
“The plan was (to play) how we started, but then, as they \u200bsay, you get a smack in the face and you have to change your plan. We adjusted things a little bit in that first (hydration) break and that helped us,” Sweden coach Graham Potter told reporters.<\/p>\n
The Swedes \u2060went from being top of Group F to third on three points, one behind leaders Japan, who they face next, and the Dutch, and qualification for the knockout rounds remains within reach.<\/p>\n
“When you get a good result everything goes sky-high and great, and when you don’t get a good result, everything goes quite \u200bnegative quickly, it’s just part of what it is,” Potter said.<\/p>\n
“Now we \u2060have to make sure that we get the balance right, and that we also learn from what happened \u200btonight and face the next game, which is Japan.”<\/p>\n
Despite their \u200cmidsummer disappointment, the fans in Stockholm still believe that \u200btheir team can deliver.<\/p>\n
“Now we’re go for Japan – anything can happen, and we have a lot of faith in Potter and the guys,” fan Caroline Strand told TV4.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 21 (Reuters) – One of \u2060the biggest holidays in the Swedish calendar got off to a great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-751475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}