England vs Sweden: Why is Zlatan Ibrahimovic not playing against England?

You’d expect England to win a little more comfortably than they do historically.

Betway is offering 1966/1 for Harry Kane to score a hat-trick, Kieran Trippier to score, England to hit the crossbar and manager Gareth Southgate to dance during the quarter-final.

“It’s quite simple, getting a daughter is the most handsome thing you can get, it’s a dream for every football player to play a quarter-final in the World Cup, I just try to enjoy it, to be present in the now to try get the best possible result”, he said. It sounds like a good team to me.

I bet they can’t wait to get started today.

In the seven matches that have occurred since 2000, England have won twice (once in a friendly, another in the 2012 European Championship), Sweden have won twice (both friendlies) and the sides have drawn three times (twice at World Cups 2002 and 2006, and one friendly).

Gareth Southgate led the Three Lions to a penalty-shootout victory over Colombia in the round of 16, but Sweden have only conceded in one of their four matches in Russian Federation and look like a dark horse emerging.

“We’re a team, we do this together on and off the pitch, and this has meant that we’ve been as successful as we have so far”, Granqvist said. Sweden last reached the semifinals in 1994, while England’s last appearance in that stage of the tournament came four years prior.

The last time the pair met in a competitive fixture was at the European Championship in 2012, when Roy Hodgson’s England won 3-2 thanks to a Danny Welbeck victor.

Former Sweden worldwide Hakan Mild labelled Southgate’s youthful squad as “spoilt children who earn a lot of money” earlier this week and noises coming out of Janne Andersson’s camp have broadly amounted to a feeling England may not be able to cope with their battling qualities. “I don’t think a lot of people expected the teams in the quarterfinals to be here now, to be honest, and the semifinal is the same, whoever gets there”. Players have dreams too. “But we’re going to do everything to stop him”, he said.

“This is how we play, this is what we need to do, this is our strength, and we also need to see our quality against other strong teams”.

And it is a step that has tripped England up so many times.

History is there to be rewritten and Southgate’s players are doing a good job of that so far in Russian Federation.