Swedish relief is tangible

There was a feeling of relief and joy in the Swedish camp the day after their UEFA EURO 2004™ campaign was resurrected following Mattias Jonson's late equaliser against Denmark at the Estádio do Bessa Século XXI in Porto.

'Great relief'
"It's amazing, and it's a feeling of great relief," said Jonson. "But at the same time we must forget the game against Denmark now and focus on our next game, whether it is against Germany, Netherlands or Latvia."

Slow start
Sweden, once again, started off slowly against the Danes and captain Olof Mellberg had no real explanation for it. "No, against Bulgaria and Italy we gave their players too much room, but this time I don't really know why it came to that," he said. "We've spoken a lot about getting good starts, but for some reason we don't really get off to the kind of start we want."

Too cautious
Mellberg's defensive colleague, Andreas Jakobsson, said: "I think it is a combination of being too cautious, as well as wanting too much." The 2-2 draw meant that Italy were eliminated, but coach Lars Lagerbäck once again insisted that the result was not settled before the game. "Anyone who believes that this result was fixed knows nothing about football," he said. "We had to work really hard in tough conditions and came back twice from being a goal down. The boys did extremely well, and I'm sure that the Danes were gutted when we got the equaliser."

Substitutions
Lagerbäck was also pleased to see that the second-half substitutions once again paid dividends. "Some of it is planned, but you also have to take a look at the game in progress. Yesterday we wanted to get in as much speed as possible, and that"s why we got [Christian] Wilhelmsson on the pitch. When we strengthened the attack with [Marcus] Allbäck we also had the chance of playing Freddie [Ljungberg] and Henrik [Larsson] in the centre of the pitch, giving them a lot of time with the ball. It worked and of course I'm delighted."

Lucic and Linderoth
With Erik Edman picking up his second yellow card yesterday, Sweden will have to reshuffle again ahead of the quarter-finals but Lagerbäck remains positive. "Yes, [Teddy] Lucic [injured in the opening game] is getting better every day and he might be in contention for a place in the starting eleven. Tobias [Linderoth] returns [from suspension] so we've got a number of options."

'Morale is high'
As for Sweden's chances in the last eight, Ljungberg was in a positive mood: "Well, the way we came back in the last two games shouldn't really be possible, so of course it has given us an enormous boost, and the morale and team spirit is higher now than ever before."

Pressure
Mellberg added: "I think the fact that we got through the group stage means that some of the pressure on us will ease. In the knockout stages it's a different kind of pressure and a different kind of preparation, and I'm sure we are ready for the task."