While watching the Euros quarterfinal between Sweden and England with an eye toward covering it, I kept changing my mind on what to write about. This is a side effect of my job and my brain, both of which combine to help me begin to see narratives as soccer matches burn through their allotted time. Some matches are straightforward in this way: One team controls the game and takes the win, and isn’t that just the most boring thing to write about? Others, though, rocket between extremes, making it almost impossible to pre-write, even in my mind, what I’m going to take away from a match. Those are fun, I enjoy the challenge. There is, however, a third kind of match, unique to knockout soccer, in which penalty kicks arrive and suddenly, everything I had thought over 120 minutes of play gets thrown out the window, and all you are left with is picking up the pieces of a shootout. Sweden-England was, unequivocally, that third type of match.
At first, the narrative of this quarterfinal in Zurich seemed to be the first kind. Sweden came out with a gameplan to attack England’s biggest weakness: its shaky center back pairing. This bore fruit almost immediately. In the second minute, Sweden captain Kosovare Asllani pressed poor Jess Carter on a routine “passing out from the back” play. Asllani got just enough pressure to put a foot on the ball, which made midfielder Keira Walsh have to try a first-touch pass across her body. This was intercepted by Filippa Angeldal, whose deflection bounced to Stina Blackstenius. The Arsenal forward and Champions League final game-winner then saw Asllani wide open, as Carter had moved over to cover the deflection, and the captain slotted the ball into the far corner, giving Sweden an early lead and all of the momentum.
Sweden’s second goal was an even more overt exploitation of England’s would-be fatal flaw. A bit of pressure in the Swedish half resolved with Julia Zigiotti Olme getting the ball and spotting Blackstenius making a long run against Carter, and a perfectly weighted through ball put Sweden’s No. 11 into enough space for a foot race against the slower center back. Blackstenius took two touches to open up enough space with the ball to shoot, held off Carter’s last-ditch jostle, then went for the same far corner as Asllani to make it 2-0:
These goals weren’t isolated moments, either. Just three minutes after the first goal, Blackstenius could have scored after some pressing forced an error from England goalie Hannah Hampton, and Hampton was forced into a tough save against Fridolina Rolfo just before halftime off a shot that came from a powerful run directly at right back Lucy Bronze. England did hit the post in the sixth minute, but as the teams went into the break, this looked like it was going to be a one-sided embarrassment for the defending champions.
Whatever England manager Sarina Wiegman said to her players at halftime worked. England came out with a more attacking mindset, one that took advantage of its top-tier forward line. Just four minutes into the second half, Ella Toone fired a warning shot, getting behind the backline and forcing a save from Jennifer Falk in goal. Toone was offside, but the signs were there. Two minutes later, Lauren James hit a great cross that Lauren Hemp could only head wide. There was a penalty shout in there, too, and Falk was called on a couple of times to keep England off the scoreboard, but even without scoring, it was clear the Lionesses were on the hunt. It was no surprise, then, that they drew blood twice in quick succession in the dying moments of regular time.
In the 79th minute, substitute Chloe Kelly was given just a bit too much space on the left wing and spotted Bronze on the opposite post, not being as tightly guarded as Sweden might have wanted. Kelly put the cross on a platter, floating it above a congested box and onto Bronze’s head, which nodded it in. Suddenly, there was hope for England, and it only took two minutes for salvation to arrive. In the 81st minute, Kelly once again got space on the left wing, and once again hit a cross to a waiting teammate in the box. This time, Sweden’s Jonna Andersson got enough on it to knock it away from Beth Mead. Unfortunately for the Swedes, the ball fell directly to substitute Michelle Agyemang, who made no mistake with the tap-in:
For the remaining nine minutes plus stoppage time, England looked the more likely to score the winner, coming short on its best chance due to a lapse of judgement from Alessia Russo, who decided to shoot into a defender in the 93rd minute rather than play a pass to a wide-open Kelly. (Big credit to Wiegman for her introduction of Kelly in the 78th minute; she was England’s most impactful player after her substitution, and she acquitted herself well in the penalties, but more on that in a bit.)
Extra time was nervy, but neither team got all that close to grabbing a winner; Sweden had some semblance of an attack, but all the high-pressing earlier in the match seemed to wipe out their stamina, while England just could not get fluid attacks going. And so, on came penalties, a cruel ending to a riveting game of high quality and high drama. The shootout would only be one of those two things.
I’ve watched a lot of soccer in my life, and a lot of penalty shootouts, so I won’t be hyperbolic and say this was for sure the worst set of penalties I’ve ever seen. What I will say is that no worse set of penalties comes to mind. It’s not just that the two teams combined to miss nine out of 14 kicks. It’s how bad so many of those failed attempts were. Before I get into that, I will say that there were a couple of beauties in this nightmare of a shootout, and it’s worth pointing them out to spare those sharpshooters from the scorn the others are in for:
- Russo stepped up first and hit such a perfect shot into the side of the goal that a correctly guessing Falk couldn’t stop it
- Julia Zigiotti Olme stepped up second for Sweden and absolutely roofed one in
- Kelly, absolutely brimming with confidence, stepped up fifth for England, needing to convert to stay alive, and did just that, sending Falk the wrong way with a gorgeous finish to her right
- Finally, Bronze stepped up in the second round of sudden death kicks and, like Zigiotti Olme before her, roofed it
OK, that’s it for the good penalties, now time for the mess. Of the nine failed shots, it’s safe to say that none of them required incredible goalkeeping. Sure, with the odds stacked against keepers in all penalties, every save is impressive in its own right, but still, these were some of the worst-hit penalties a goalie will ever face. Filippa Angeldahl got things started with what was probably the best of the saved penalties, hitting it low and hard to Hampton’s left, but the Chelsea keeper was equal to it. From there it got worse: Lauren James, who went second for England, hit the ball so softly to Falk’s right that the Swedish keeper didn’t even need full extension to save it. Beth Mead went right after James, and hit almost the exact same bad penalty, albeit with a bit more force. Alex Greenwood’s kick was aimed so poorly that Falk blocked it with her mid-section.
The penalties that didn’t require saves were the most painful, though, and they all came from Sweden. With a chance to put her country ahead with their third spot kick, Magda Eriksson instead hit it too far right and clanged off the post. That was nothing compared to the next Swedish miss, though. In a perplexing choice, given the stakes and circumstances, Falk herself stepped up to take Sweden’s fifth penalty, one score away from a spot in the semis. Regardless of the motivation for it, the move backfired, as the keeper hit something that looked more like a goal kick than a penalty kick, skying the ball deep into the Zurich night and giving England life once more.
Into sudden death they went, and the quality, if possible, got worse. Grace Clinton got us started by taking James’s initial weak penalty and somehow shooting the exact same way, only weaker. Not to be outdone, Sofia Jakobsson also hit the same penalty, and about as weakly, allowing Hampton to get enough on the ball to deflect it onto the post and safely out. Bronze then stepped up to give England its first lead in the shootout since 1-0, leaving Sweden’s survival on the right foot of 18-year-old Smilla Holmberg. The result was brutal, as Holmberg got way under the ball and hit it even further up than Falk had.
What can one take away from a match like this, which was so entertaining and tactically interesting and emotionally scarring? Sweden is going home despite executing its plan to perfection for a half, a victim of shock-and-awe goals and shock-and-awful penalty shooting. England advances, but its weakness looks even weaker, even if Italy seems less suited to exploit in the semis than one of the elite teams on the other side of the bracket (France, Germany, Spain). At least the Lionesses can walk away from this wreckage without ruing the missed opportunities that come from so under-performing in a shootout, unlike the Swedes. A win’s a win, even if England’s win turned into something of a horror movie for everyone involved along the way.
