Sweden make visit worthwhile

Sweden 5 Bulgaria 0Hmmm! It didn't augur well and frankly if the Portuguese hadn't obligingly built the Jose Alvalade Stadium just across the way from the media hotel we might not have bothered wandering out at all. Goes to show, you never can tell.

After all when you need to get your tournament blazing who are you going to call? Not the Swedes. In eight major tournaments since 1958 they've failed to record a win in their first match. They start slowly and then go into a warm-down routine.

And certainly not the Bulgarians. Clean sheet specialists and purveyors of quality tedium since records began.

And yet between them they conjured up a lively match, an unlikely margin and a few quality goals. By the end the Swedes were more than a little in love with themselves, the Bulgarians felt sour to have been so badly trounced and the rest of us were glad we'd come.

The Bulgarians first. Usually you get a warning when something like this is about to befall you. For the first half hour last night, however, the Bulgarians were blithe, unsuspecting and playing the better football. With the lively Dimitar Berbatov being supported by Zoran Jankovic, a Croat drafted by the Bulgarians under the V in your surname rule, they were the more adventurous early on. Down the right wing Martin Petrov surfed blithely past Teddy Lucic any time the Bulgarians rolled forward.

It seemed just a matter of time. By the half hour mark the Bulgarians were lamenting a modest number of missed chances and resolving to do better after they'd had a cup of tea and time to think about it. Then they heard a hideous creaking noise from the heart of their defence.

Anders Svensson prodded a firm ball from midfield, Ibrahimovic raced forward not pausing even to see if he'd got the benefit of the offside decision. He squared from the right and Freddie Ljungberg slid the ball into an empty net.

A little more perhaps than the Swedes had deserved but filled with confidence now they began slotting together moves like pieces of self assembly furniture.

It took till after the break for the Bulgarians to regain their composure. They went back to the same blueprints. Martin Petrov lobbing a cross which Jankovic headed wide when a goal seemed the easier option. Jankovovic going close. The Swedes, though, were beginning to suspect that big tournaments don't always have to be gloomy as a Bergman film. They had the instruments with which to make changes.

In Sweden the mere notion of having Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrik Larsson up front has been greeted like the end of prohibition. Quite rightly it transpires.

Ibrahimovic has belied a reputation for churlishness with a string of deferential comments about the joys of just being on the same pitch as the former Celtic player. Larsson, in his turn, provides enough star wattage to make everyone look a little better than they are when he's around. Thirty two years old and at a crossroads in his working life he continues to be special. Sometimes very special. In his career there are certain sides whom he regards as a man with a blunderbuss might regard fish teeming in a barrel.

Bulgaria are such a team.

Till last night Larsson had scored five times in five games against them. By the 57th minute he was loaded and ready to continue the sequence when Ibrahimovic, marauding down the right, launched a perfect cross which Larsson met with exquisite timing and perfect technique.

The celebrations had scarcely died down when Anders Svensson swept the ball from the right across the face of the Bulgarian goal. Larsson was there on the far left side with a low first-time shot to return the ball to the same corner of the net it had been nestling in 50 seconds earlier.

Three goals up, leading their group and with just half an hour left, well, even the Swedes couldn't resist letting the hair down.

The Bulgarians exasperated by the whole business replaced both their starting forwards (their centre halves apparently having signed an immunity deal) but things just got worse. On 78 minutes Ljungberg was tumbled by Ivanov as Sweden came to the end of a move which involved many taunting passes and a series of olés from the crowd. Ibrahimovic deservedly got to take the penalty and stretched the margin to four.

By now Sweden had introduced the tasty French-based midfielder Kim Kallstrom and the youngster declined to spare Bulgarian feelings driving his team in search of a fifth. It came in injury time, a delicate lob from Kallstrom sending Marcus Allback clear.

His shot rasped the fingers of Zdrankov and looped into the net.

The Bulgarians could only shake their weary heads.