RTÉ Soccer analyst Lisa Fallon believes a host of absentees for Sweden makes the upcoming Euro 2025 qualifying double-header a huge opportunity for the Republic of Ireland to gain their first points of the campaign.
Eileen Gleeson’s side opened a daunting group against two of the three highest ranked sides in the world in early April, losing 1-0 to France in Metz before a 2-0 loss to reigning continental champions England at the Aviva Stadium.
Sweden, sixth in the FIFA rankings and semi-finalists at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, are the visitors to Dublin on Friday (live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player) and the return game will follow on Tuesday at the Friends Arena in Solna, Stockholm.
Ireland faced the Nordic nation during the successful World Cup qualifying campaign and after an unfortunate 1-0 defeat at Tallaght Stadium, earned a creditable 1-1 draw in Gothenburg which was one of the first signs to highlight that the Girls in Green could compete with the globe’s leading teams on a surer footing.
Speaking on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast, Fallon felt those recent experiences would boost confidence but that can also be coupled to a raft of absentees within the Swedish ranks.
“There’s a real opportunity particularly when you look at the Sweden squad,” she said.
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“They’re missing Stina Blackstenius who is their taliswoman in terms of their goals. She’s scored 31 goals for Sweden and in addition to that the girl who would normally be her replacement, Anna Anvegård, she’s also not available.
“And when you look at their performances in the Women’s World Cup, they were really excellent, particularly strong on set-plays.
“They scored the most number of goals from corners and free kicks in the Women’s World Cup and Amanda Ilestedt the centre-back scored those and Amanda Ilestedt is missing also as she’s expecting her first child.
“So I think this is a great opportunity for Ireland, considering they’re missing such key players and I think based on their experience, there’s no mystery about playing Sweden for this group of Irish players.
“And I think based on the experience they had, particularly over in Sweden, they should have real confidence going into this game and take more confidence from the performances against France and England.”
That being said, Sweden will still be clear favourites in both games and Fallon described their manager Peter Gerhardsson as impressive having seen his methods in close proximity after the World Cup through her own role with FIFA.
“Sweden are a really interesting team and it’s one of the key strengths of Peter Gerhardsson, their manager,” she said.
“I actually got to work with him recently after the Women’s World Cup coaches’ forum when we brought in all the coaches from the Women’s World Cup and we presented back to them the findings and trends from the Women’s World Cup.
“He’s particularly interesting in the way that he’s consistently been able to reinvent this Sweden squad. Particularly they’ve had to transition some really key players.
“But Sweden are a team that are technically really good, they’re a very physical team as well. They have players who have both physicality and technical ability.
“They can dominate the ball but they can also be really organised and very tactically astute, so they’re well capable of sitting in and being defensive.”
Watch Republic of Ireland v Sweden in Euro 2025 qualifying on Friday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on an extended Game On with 2fm
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