The Sweden national football team is the national football team of Sweden and is controlled by the Swedish Football Association.
1994 World Cup
Sweden qualified for the World Cup at the top of their qualifying group ahead of Bulgaria. Sweden was placed in Group B with Brazil, Cameroon, and Russia. The first game against Cameroon was going to be yet another 1-2 loss, (after the 1990 World Cup fiasco with losses of 1-2 in all three games), but in the 75th minute Martin Dahlin scored the equalizer from a rebound shot off of Henrik Larsson. In the next game against Russia, Russia scored early with a penalty. But Sweden managed to come back, with a penalty goal from Tomas Brolin and two goals from Martin Dahlin. In the last group stage match against Brazil, they tied 1-1.
In the first knockout stage match, Sweden faced Saudi Arabia and won 3-1 after two goals from Kennet Andersson and one from Martin Dahlin. The quarter-final match against Romania has become a memorable match for Swedish football fans. After Sweden scored late in the second half, Romania managed to equalize in the last minutes of the match, sending it into extra time. Romania's Florin Raducioiu who scored the first goal for Romania, scored his second of the day to take Romania ahead at the 101st minute. But with five minutes left Kennet Andersson scored with a header to make the score even at 2-2. The penalty shoot out began with a miss from Håkan Mild of Sweden, but Thomas Ravelli managed two saves. That gave Sweden the win, making him a Swedish hero. Sweden went through to face Brazil in the semi-finals. They had manged to score in the group stage against Brazil but couldn't do it a second time. After Jonas Thern had been sent off with a red card Romário scored the only goal of the game in the 80th minute.
In the third place match Sweden played against Bulgaria who had lost to Italy in their semi-final match. Sweden scored 4 goals in the first half, but the second half went goal-less. Sweden won the bronze medal, the best placing for the national team in a World Cup play-off since the 1958 silver medal. This led Sweden to the second place of the FIFA World Rankings for one month, in November 1994.
They finished as the top scorers of the tournament, with 15 goals.
[edit] 2006 World Cup
Sweden competed in Group B at the 2006 World Cup. Their squad for the tournament features players who play club football in eleven different nations. Sweden started the World Cup slowly, recording a scoreless tie against unheralded Trinidad and Tobago, despite playing with a one-man advantage for much of the game. The second game, against Paraguay, threatened to produce the same result until Fredrik Ljungberg scored in the 89th minute to give Sweden a 1-0 victory. Sweden then rallied to tie England, 2-2, to finish group play with five points - enough to finish second in its' group and advance to the second round. There, the team's World Cup run came to an end with a 2-0 defeat to the host team, Germany.
[edit] 2008 European Championship Qualifying
Sweden finished second in Group F behind Spain, thus qualifying for the finals. The campaign included an abandoned match away to Denmark, for which Sweden were awarded a 3-0 win by UEFA.
[edit] Supporters
The first time the Swedish supporters showed up was during the 1912 Summer Olympics, where they sang "Heja Sverige Friskt humör, det är det som susen gör" during the football games. The traveling supporters for Sweden's away games showed up for the first time in the 1974 FIFA World Cup in West Germany, and since those years Sweden has always had the supporters in large tournaments. In the 2006 FIFA World Cup Sweden had one of the largest amount of support during a tournament, especially during the group stage match against Paraguay with around 50,000 Swedish supporters in the stadium.
[edit] Stadium
The Swedish national stadium is called the Råsunda Fotbollsstadion, but it will be replaced in 2011 by the new national stadium Swedbank Arena. According to FIFA, Råsunda Stadion is a classic stadium, one of only two stadiums in the world, the other one being the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California, USA, which hosted both the 1958 FIFA World Cup final and the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup. Råsunda stadium was opened 18 September 1910, and had a capacity of only 2.000, mostly standings. It was Råsunda stadium and valhalla stadium in Gothenburg that was the first football fields with gras for Swedish football. The stadium were expanded during 1937, to a capacity of 40.000 people. The stadium was used for the football tournament in 1912 Summer Olympics hield in Stockholm, and hosted 8 games during the FIFA World cup 1958. In the UEFA European Championship in 1992, the stadium hosted 4 games and in the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup it hosted only the final game. But Råsunda stadium is still the only stadium in Scandinavia that have hosted 4 big tournaments. Ullevi in Gothenburg is used for some games Sweden plays, as the 100 years celebration game of Swedish football association, against England in 2004. Even other stadiums, as malmö stadion in Malmö, is used for the national team.
