The Sweden players Fridolina Rolfo and Kosovare Asllani were, not surprisingly, well rehearsed.
They were excited to be facing the United States again at a major tournament. They knew not to ever, ever underestimate the Americans. They expected a good, tough game.
“We love these do-or-die games,” Asllani said. But talk of momentum or revenge after a string of past defeats against the U.S., or lingering confidence from a victory against the Americans at the Tokyo Olympics? No chance.
“We have good memories from earlier, from the Olympics,” Asllani added, “but it’s a lot of years ago. It doesn’t matter now.”
Their coach, Peter Gerhardsson, has led Sweden since 2017. So he was there for the U.S. victory at the 2019 World Cup, and the Swedish one at the Tokyo Games. But when questions floated in asking him to wander down memory lane, or to discuss the Americans’ relatively middling results in the group stage, he batted them away.
“I don’t know what the U.S. thinks about their performance so far,” he said, “And I don’t care about it.”
“We have a possibility to win the game,” he added. “That’s the most important thing to me and my team.”
History, he said, would have no impact on Sunday’s game in Melbourne. “Football is interesting because you can talk about self confidence, and you can be very good, and you talk about revenge, and the underdog mentality,” Gerhardsson said. “For me, that’s not what’s going to make a difference in what happens tomorrow. It’s the players who are going to play.”
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Spain and Japan Pounce on the First Quarterfinal Spots - The New York Times"
Post a Comment