During the opening minutes in Guimarães, Sweden was allowed to keep the ball during the international match against Portugal.
The crowd got to see a couple of passing combinations in midfield but without creating anything of value in the attacking half.
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Then Portugal increased the tempo and the goals started to trickle in behind Robin Olsen. Rafael Leao thundered in 1-0 after 24 minutes of play. By then, dangers had already been created around the Swedish goal.
Nannskog: “Extremely out of sync”
Ten minutes later, Matheus Nunes added before Bruno Fernandes completed a fine conversion on the stroke of the half-time whistle by bumping 3-0 into an open Swedish goal.
– You can only say that it is an extremely out of sync Sweden all over the court where Portugal can easily play through the team parts where the Swedish players are too far away in the press game, stated SVT Sports expert, Daniel Nannskog, during the half-time break.
5-1 after an hour of play
Tomasson’s heavy opening night continued in the second half. Sweden certainly got a hole in Portugal when Viktor Gyökeres pushed in a reduction from close range after an hour of play which meant 1-4.
But two minutes later, the Portuguese’s fifth goal of the evening came after new Swedish defensive mistakes.
There was then a rejected closing half hour of the match where Sweden was allowed to keep the ball but without creating anything.
In the final minute, Dejan Kulusevski gave a fine individual performance at the penalty area line, hit a fine cross that substitute Gustaf Nilsson was able to head in until the final score was 2-5.