Sweden's defensive strategy pays off again with upset of Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO – Sweden’s ultra-defensive strategy paid off again.

The Swedish team, which knocked off the United States in the quarterfinal after forcing a penalty shootout – which prompted Hope Solo to call the team “cowards” – went with the same game plan against Brazil in the semifinal on Tuesday.

It worked again. Brazil was unable to unlock the Swedish defense, and the game went to a penalty shootout after neither team was able to score in the 90 minutes of regular time and 30 minutes of extra time.

After Andressa of Brazil had her penalty saved by Swedish keeper Hedvig Lindahl, Sweden’s Lisa Dahlkvist stepped up and buried hers in the net, giving the team a 4-3 win in penalties. The crowd in Maracana Stadium gasped as the Swedish team sprinted around the field in celebration.

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After the match, Dahlkvist said the way she dealt with the crowd was a little mental gymnastics: “I was just thinking that they were cheering for Sweden, and that the noise was for me.”

Moments after the game ended, the arena gave the Brazilian team a standing ovation.

“We owe [the crowd] one,” said Brazil coach Vadao through a translator after the match. “They did their part.”

The game was played on Sweden’s terms. For everything Brazil threw at them, they had an answer, staying compact in the back, often with eight, nine, even 10 players back behind the ball on defense. Brazil wanted to play through the feet of Marta, but Sweden gummed up the middle, forcing the Brazil star into wider and wider positions to collect and find space.

In the second half Brazil made a clear effort to push Marta back into the center of the park, but as the game went on, she drifted wide again. Sweden’s entire game plan was built on forcing the Brazilians wide, then winning the ball when Brazil would try to cross it in. For 120 minutes, it worked.

“All the Swedish players know Marta very well,” said Sundhage. “I thought she had a fantastic game. She created some problems for us on the left side. But overall looking at the midfield … we did pretty good.”

In overtime, Sweden kept up the game plan. The stuck back, defended hard. Players went down with injuries that Sweden’s fans certainly saw as real and Brazilian fans, quite loudly, saw as faked attempts at time-wasting. Brazil brought on Cristiane, who was thought to be suffering from a hamstring strain, in the hopes of her providing that creative spark to unlock the Sweden defense.

It didn’t work, and the game went to penalties.

“We tried all of the ways to play, everything possible, for the entire 120 minutes,” Vadao said through a translator. “I put in Cristiane at the end. I can only say that this is very frustrating.”

Former USWNT coach and current Sweden coach Pia Sundhage said that Solo’s comments weren’t necessarily a motivating factor in the match.

“I wouldn’t say that we brought it up many times,” said Sundhage, “because football is so much more than a comment here and there.”

The two teams played in front of a crowd that was overwhelmingly Brazilian -- two Sweden fans, Melissa Denbaum and Petter Ericsson of Stockholm, said they’d seen less than five other Sweden fans inside and outside the stadium, which has a capacity of 78,000.