January 26, 2002

Sweden beat England again

Colin Aldis

For the first time in their 30 year history, the England team have travelled abroad for a training session, flying down to the southern coast of Spain, to La Manga, which included a match against Sweden, who share a sports facility with Norway in the vicinity.

Unfortunately, the result of the match, played on January 25th, showed the strength of the Scandinavian opponents, as Sweden won 5-0. This was 6 months after Sweden beat England 4-0 at the UEFA Finals in Germany, and in 14 meetings dating back to 1975, England have won just once, with 4 matches drawn.

Ironically, the two teams are due to meet at the Algarve Cup in early March, when England will also meet Norway and USA.

No England team news was available at the time of writing, but it must be hoped that some good will come from the sessions and the match, which can only mean a win against Portugal on February 24th at Portsmouth, in the first UEFA/WWC 2003 qualifer of the year. A win for England will put them into 2nd place in the group, which kept would mean a play-off against the 2nd placed team from Group 3.