Swedish duo humbled by Dutch defeat
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, captain of Sweden's national team, could not hide his disappointment after his team slumped to a 4–1 defeat to the Netherlands on Tuesday evening.
Sweden had travelled to Amsterdam with the hopes of maintaining their flawless start to the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign, but Bert van Marwijk's team proved too strong a test for Erik Hamren's young team.
"It's not a good result at all," Ibrahimovic told Swedish TV4 after the game. "We lost 4-1 and they had total control of the match. They scored a goal after just five minutes and we were just
rocked from then on."
The Swedish team attempted to play attacking football against the World Cup runners-up, but the Dutch responded with resolute defending and clinical counter-attacks.
"Every time we tried to raise ourself it felt like we got knocked down. There's a lot you can say but you also have to prove it during the game. We just have to hope that we'll learn something from this
game and won't make the same mistakes again - and win the rest of the games. But yeah, they were a lot better than us."
Simple mistakes proved costly
Erik Hamren, in charge of the Swedish team since 2009, said that he had not expected his team to make the simple errors it did during the game.
Right-back Behrang Safari's first-half throw-in landed at the feet of Sneijder, who acted quickly to play Ibrahim Afellay through for the Netherlands' second goal.
"It's not what I hoped for. We can't be giving away goals when we have a throw-in," said Hamren, who replaced Safari at half-time. "We must remember that our defence were facing a talented attacking team,
but we definitely gave away a few cheap balls."
Sweden are now third in Group E with six points from three games. The Netherlands lead the group with 12 points after four straight wins, three points ahead of second-placed Hungary.
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