Euro 2012 team guide and squad: Sweden

THE butter-yellow shirts that traditionally adorn the Swedes belies a stiffness that has characterised much of their play in recent history.

Though they’ve always been blessed with a world class player or two in the last decade (Henrik Larsson, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and you could count a pre-Leeds Thomas Brolin in the same category), the Swedes have often shunned tactics that revolve around their star players, favouring an organised, safety-first approach. Team captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic, having enjoyed one of his best seasons at AC Milan, will be expected to produce miracles for an otherwise unfancied team. But, the feeling persists that Ibrahimovic, who is not the most accommodating of personalities, will demand his team-mates take some of the creative slack - something that may finally come to pass now that coach Erik Hamren has added a dynamism to the team’s attack. Should Sweden fail to rise to the ocassion, you feel that Ibrahimovic’s contribution will rather resemble the installation of calf leather seats into a Volvo diesel estate.

KEY PLAYER: AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic will undoubtedly be the focal point of the team, and will be called upon to produce the sparkle required to advance the Swedes into the knockout stages. At the peak of his powers and fully fit, it is now or never for the much-travelled Swede to prove he is a player for the big occasion at international level. Hamren had struggled to integrate him into the team properly until positioning him behind a lone striker against Croatia in a friendly earlier this year - which Sweden won 3-1 - so it’s likely that Ibrahimovic will have license to drift and invite others into play.

ODDS 66/1

WORLD RANKING 17

GROUP D

FIXTURES

June 11, 2012 Ukraine (Kiev, Ukr)

June 15, 2012 England (Kiev, Ukr)

June 19, 2012 France (Kiev, Ukr)

THE COACH: Erik Hamren - Many feel Hamren has liberated Sweden from the rigid style of predecessor Lars Lagerback, whose conservativism was tolerated because, until their failure to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, it had managed to produce respectable results with limited resources. That’s not to say that the Swedes have been transformed - the majority of players at Hamren’s disposal were fixtures of Lagerback’s squads - but reports suggest a more relaxed atmosphere in training, which may help afford the team the freedom of expression they have lacked for so long.

He said it...

Criticising the Swedish league schedule for fatiguing his players, Hamren said: “Swedish football should stop and think if what they are doing is the right thing, And if this is the way you want to run things, then you are giving your players very little chance to win. This, for me as national-team coach, is unacceptable.”

SQUAD

Goalkeepers

Andreas Isaksson (PSV Eindhoven)

Johan Wiland (Copenhagen)

Pär Hansson (Helsingborgs)

Defenders

Mikael Antonsson (Bologna)

Andreas Granqvist (Genoa)

Olof Mellberg (Olympiakos)

Jonas Olsson (West Bromwich Albion)

Martin Olsson (Blackburn Rovers)

Behrang Safari (Anderlecht)

Mikael Lustig (Celtic)

Midfielders

Emir Bajrami (Twente)

Rasmus Elm (Alkmaar)

Samuel Holmén (Istanbul BB)

Kim Källström (Lyon)

Sebastian Larsson (Sunderland)

Anders Svensson (Elfsborg)

Pontus Wernbloom (CSKA Moscow)

Christian Wilhelmsson (Al-Hilal)

Forwards

Johan Elmander (Galatasaray)

Tobias Hysén (Göteborg)

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (AC Milan)

Markus Rosenberg (Werder Bremen)

Ola Toivonen (PSV Eindhoven)