Domanski-Lyfors takes stock

By Katia Malkoc & Paul Saffer

Two defeats
A late Birgit Prinz goal condemned Sweden to a 2-1 opening defeat by world and European champions Germany, but a 2-0 win against China and 1-1 draw with Norway took Domanski-Lyfors' side into the bronze-medal match, only to lose 3-2 to in-form France despite equalising twice.

Experimental lineup
Domanski-Lyfors, whose team's EURO campaign begins with the tournament curtain-raiser against Denmark in Blackpool on 5 June before meeting Finland and hosts England, saw her side gain a higher finish in Portugal than all their Group A rivals, but still feels they could have done better despite fielding an often experimental lineup.

Pluses and minuses
She told uefa.com: "We ended up in fourth, I am not so happy with that. But we played quite well and saw some new young players come through. We left some of the teams who will play against us at EURO behind and I think that's good."

Injured duo
The coach had always intended give each player at least two starts during the tournament, and was boosted by the form of Caroline Seger, who scored against Norway six days before her 20th birthday. However, Sweden were already without Victoria Svensson, who has only just returned to training after foot surgery, when their other key forward, Hanna Ljungberg, suffered a dead leg against Germany and was ruled out for the rest of the Algarve Cup.

Fitness hope
Svensson and Ljungberg are crucial to Sweden's hopes of going one better than their runners-up position behind Germany at both EURO 2001 and the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup, and Domanski-Lyfors admitted: "If we have everyone healthy we have a good chance of doing well but we need everyone fit."

World Cup focus
Opening EURO opponents Denmark are also Sweden's next friendly rivals on 30 April in Vaxjo, before home May warm-ups against the Netherlands and Canada. Following June's exploits in England, Sweden begin their 2007 World Cup campaign, and last week were placed in qualifying Group 2 along with Iceland, Czech Republic, Portugal and Belgium.

'Good draw'
Only one place in the finals on China is on offer, but Domanski-Lyfors sounded a confident note, saying: "I think we got a good draw. We avoided some teams in the other groups and I'm happy with that."

European development
That said, she is well aware that none of the games will be easy, even for a team as accomplished as Sweden. "There has been great development," she said. "There are now many teams that can compete with the very best in European football. This was shown in the World Cup when there were two European teams in the final. That's good for Europe."