Portugal vs Sweden: It’s Do or Die (or Dive?)
Big game in UEFA World Cup Qualifying this Saturday. Portugal and Sweden are the type of teams that can reasonably expect to qualify for the World Cup, or at least come very very close. But it’s not looking good for either of them in Group 1, where they’re fourth and fifth respectively. All respect to Albania, but you can’t finish below them in a qualifying group and expect a trip to the World Cup.
The two teams meet in Portugal this Saturday (March 28th) and defeat for either would be a disaster. A draw wouldn’t be great either, since surprise group leaders Denmark have an easyish game against Malta (and second place Hungary also play Malta three days later).
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is suspended for Sweden, but his replacement will be a 37 year old Henrik Larsson. And the formerly dreadlocked striker must have one eye on a managerial career, because he’s already started with the mind games.
“I intend speaking with the referee before the match to warn him about Ronaldo diving,” Larsson told the Daily Mail.
“We must be careful, as a team, not to get caught out by that, but so must the referee. I will be having a word with him and telling him to keep an eye out for it.”
Larsson has seen Ronaldo up close and personal while on loan at Man Utd in 2007, but that was 2007. It’s now 2009, and even the harshest C-Ron critics will have to admit that his diving has improved. And by improved I mean he does it a lot less, not that he’s getting really good at it.
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By Jose | March 26th, 2009 at 10:47 am 
It feels weird… but I feel like I would miss Sweden more at the World Cup than I would Portugal.
Posted from 
United States
By Seth | March 26th, 2009 at 10:50 am Hopefully, Portugal will make it.
By Ian | March 26th, 2009 at 12:24 pm Sweden aren’t actually in that poor shape in the group, considering they have a game in hand over Portugal and Hungary and two over Albania. If they win, they’re potentially top of the group and if they lose, they just have the record that Portugal has now. It’s Portugal that’s under the real pressure, especially with the game on their ground. If Sweden wins, Portugal is going to have a hell of a climb.
By Jose | March 26th, 2009 at 12:28 pm You know, the way the UEFA qualifiers are set up got me thinking: which of the qualification systems for each Confederation is the “best”? This is a whole other topic to play with, because “best” can be analyzed in several different ways:
1) Which is the “fairest”? As in, which one gives every team the same chance to qualify… CONMEBOL, with its one-group, double round-robin is probably the fairest here. Worst would be Africa’s… where basically the luck of the draw for the last round can really complicate one good team’s chances.
2) Which is most effective at qualifying the teams that will BEST REPRESENT the confederation at the World Cup? Here I’d actually say it would be CONCACAF, which gradually selects the best teams and faces them off in the Hexagonal, with all the points being fought over only THE YEAR BEFORE the World Cup. This means that the teams that are “hottest” are most likely to be in the WC for that Confederation. CONMEBOL, for example, takes 2.5 years to decide, meaning a team could power through the first 1.5 years and then completely fizzle out in the 12 months before the WC.
3) Which is the best for overall development of the Confederation? As in, which one gives all its teams the most match time and experience. Interestingly, it’s probably between UEFA and CONMEBOL, where ALL their teams are still playing up through the end of qualifying. Worst are Asia and CONCACAF, where SO MANY of the teams are basically eliminated within the first 4 match days 
Sorry for the tangent… I was just thinking about this.
Posted from United States
By Helge | March 26th, 2009 at 3:03 pm I really hope Sweden wins this. But my favourite for this group is Denmark anyway, it’s time for the Danish to be back in an international tournament!
Posted from 
Germany
By Thomas | March 26th, 2009 at 7:25 pm Interesting questions Jose. Maybe you could expand on them in a post.
By Anthony | March 26th, 2009 at 7:34 pm I agree Helge, I’d like to see Denmark back in international action but as far as this match goes, I really hope Sweden win, I can’t stand our little brothers 
By Shadame | March 28th, 2009 at 12:45 am Get a load of this Larsson guy… “Before the game I’m going to talk to the referee about Ronaldo diving.” What a dork! If he really does go that far out of his way to talk to the ref about it, and actually has the nerve to tell him to keep an eye out for it, I hope the ref gets offended by it as he should. If I was the ref, I would ask Larsson if he thinks that I’m so incompetent that I cannot discern when a player is diving or not. Then I would assure him that I will be looking out for anyone diving, not just Ronaldo. Finally, just for being such a schmuck I’d look for any reason to card Larsson during the game. So go ahead Larsson, take your chances and talk to that referee. How’s that for mind games.
By J. Lopes | March 28th, 2009 at 2:09 am Of course Portugal is gonna win. Unless something weird happent. 90% of the times Portugal win when in such critical position.
By T.Nielsen | March 28th, 2009 at 10:20 am keep playn well denmark I’ve been waiting to see us back in the main events so keep it up and we will be there this time!
Posted from 
Canada
By T.Nielsen | March 28th, 2009 at 10:20 am keep playn well denmark I’ve been waiting to see us back in the main events so keep it up and we will be there this time!
Posted from Canada
By Nick | March 28th, 2009 at 2:41 pm Screw you bastards complaining about Portugal diving, you guys are just jealous, fuck off.
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