Sweden can match best says Bjärsmyr

Sweden captain Mattias Bjärsmyr believes the UEFA European Under-21 Championship hosts can enter the tournament confident in their ability to compete with the continent's best.

Semi-final goal
The Swedes have not played a competitive fixture for almost three years but Bjärsmyr cited their 3-0 win away against the Netherlands, the reigning champions, last November and draws earlier this year with Italy and Spain as he set his sights on a semi-final place. The IFK Göteborg defender told uefa.com: "We have beaten or drawn against the very best.

'Something good'
"We've matched Spain, Italy, Netherlands, that's what we have got to back up our goal of reaching the semi-finals. It does matter that we've only played friendly matches and not had to qualify, but at the same time we've been able to build up something good and we feel we've been up against tough opponents."

Forward power
It helps their prospects, he added, to have forward players of the calibre of Dutch-based duo Marcus Berg and Ola Toivonen. Berg hit 22 goals in 35 Eredivisie appearances for FC Groningen in 2008/09 while Toivonen scored six in 14 for PSV Eindhoven – and was on target in the 2-1 warm-up win over Poland on 5 June. Bjärsmyr said: "They are both playing at a very high level and should be able to score a lot of goals and play well. We are going to see a lot of those two."

Revenge mission
Bjärsmyr was a helpless spectator for Sweden's last competitive outing, the 5-0 home play-off defeat by Serbia on 10 October 2006 that shattered a side leading 3-0 from the first leg. "I was watching from the sidelines and suffered with the rest of the boys," said the defender, who is looking for "a kind of revenge" when Sweden meet the Serbs in their final Group A fixture on 23 June. "Serbia are always a good team and we have to be prepared," he said, "it's the most important of all our matches."

Opposition
Prior to that, they kick off against Belarus on 16 June before facing Italy three days later. "I don't know much about the Belarus players," Bjärsmyr said. "I understand that many of them have played in the Champions League so they're going to be a really strong team. We played against Italy last winter and they have some more well-known players – [Mario] Balotelli, [Robert] Acquafresca and [Sebastian] Giovinco and the like."

'Strong teams'
As if to magnify the size of Sweden's task, Bjärsmyr counts both Italy and Serbia among the tournament favourites. "There are many strong teams, but Serbia are one of them I guess, and Italy, and even Spain and England, they are usually good as well." Attaining that semi-final goal will not be easy then, though Bjärsmyr sounded undaunted: "We know we have to focus on the football, get everything in order beforehand and make sure we don't get any unplanned disruptions."