Sweden hadn’t beaten Germany in women’s football at a major tournament since 1991. The last time a team lost a World Cup quarterfinal after scoring first came in 1999.
But those streaks came to an end Saturday as Sweden upset the second-ranked team in the world 2-1 in Rennes, France, to set up a Women’s World Cup semifinal against the fast-improving Dutch.
Goals from Sofia Jakobsson and Stina Blackstenius gave the Swedes – downed by Germany in the 2016 Olympic final in Rio – victory in the evening kickoff after Lina Magull’s brilliant opener.
“We looked at Germany and knew there would be a bit more space behind their back line to exploit with Blackstenius and Jakobsson,” Sweden boss Peter Gerhardsson was quoted as saying by FIFA. “Today it worked well, sprinting past the defensive line. We knew we had to threaten them behind their back line.”
The Netherlands earlier beat Italy 2-0 in the afternoon heat in Valenciennes to reach a first ever semifinal at the tournament.
They, along with GB and Sweden, earned spots at next year’s Olympics in Tokyo. The top three European nations at the World Cup locked up berths, with England’s performance putting GB through.
Germany, meanwhile, missed out.
“I don’t even think that Sweden played that well today,” German captain Alexandra Popp was quoted as saying by FIFA. “We should have done more. We lost balls too easily and were looking to play the long ball too often. We lacked that final, killer pass in front of goal.”
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It was a familiar name, Vivianne Miedema, who scored the winner for the Oranje in the 70th minute courtesy of a glancing header before another header from Stefanie van der Gragt 10 minutes later put the game away.
Germany hadn’t even conceded a goal in France prior to Saturday, so when Magull netted in the 16th minute on a scissor-kick volley it felt like the floodgates would open.
The opposite happened, however.
Sweden on the counter
A single ball over the top regularly unlocked the German defense, with the ever threatening Jakobsson denied by Almuth Schult before the forward made no mistake in the 22nd minute.