Euro 2025: Denmark meets Sweden again one month after being routed 6-1

Winnipeg Free Press

6 hours ago

GENEVA (AP) — Losing 6-1 in your last game before a major soccer tournament to the team that also will be your first opponent is not optimal.
It is the challenge facing Denmark players Friday when they open their Women's European Championship campaign in Geneva against Sweden. Germany and Poland also are in Group C and play Friday in St. Gallen.
'The things that hurt the most is what teaches you,' Denmark coach Andrée Jeglertz said Thursday in translated comments. 'I am convinced we will see a completely different kind of performance.'
Sweden raced to a three-goal lead on Denmark inside 11 minutes on June 3 when winning a Nations League group was at stake, in order to advance to the semifinals later this year.
Star forward Stina Blackstenius opened the scoring in the first minute and went on to complete her hat trick.
That's all forgotten now insisted Kosovare Asllani, who was captain that night of a Sweden team missing its key defender Magdalena Eriksson.
'It's a one-off that we beat them by 6-1,' Asllani said Thursday. 'We also feel like we've put that match behind us.'
Denmark defender Stine Ballisager, who got a close-up view of Sweden's rampant attack, dismissed the risk of focusing on the heavy defeat: 'We know what we stand for.'
'What you build in two years isn't demolished in one match,' coach Jeglertz said, while acknowledging 'after the game, yes, it was tough.
'We have dealt with it in a good way,' said the Denmark coach, who is Swedish. 'It's amazing that we have the opportunity to play the same opponent again without any match in between.'
Sweden coach's farewell
Sweden coach Peter Gerhardsson was elusive about planning for a quick rematch with the same tactics, suggesting his past philosophy in club soccer was 'always change a winning team.'
Gerhardsson will leave after the tournament. In his eight-year tenure, Sweden was twice a World Cup semifinalist, took the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics and reached the Euro 2022 semifinals.
'We've become more of a playmaking team,' Asllani said of the coach's influence. 'We have the courage to play more fun football, more intense football if you like.'
But the 6-1? 'That's not going to matter at all (Friday),' she said.
Asllani reaches 200
The 35-year-old midfielder's 200th game for the national team arrives in what she says will be her last tournament.
'Its going to be very special,' Asllani said of her 'enormous sense of pride' reaching the landmark. 'It's a magical number to achieve in a career.'
Eriksson vs Harder
The duel between Sweden defender Eriksson and Denmark star forward Pernille Harder is much-anticipated duel. The stellar veterans have been a couple for more than a decade and are teammates at Bayern Munich.
'It's quite a special situation,' Harder told tournament organizer UEFA. 'We have tried this a few times before, so we know that when the game starts, we kind of forget that we are partners. We go all in.'
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Host Geneva's artwork
Denmark-Sweden is the first of five Euro 2025 games in Geneva, the city which hosts the European headquarters of the United Nations and commissioned a stunning piece of public art for the tournament.
Only aerial shots do justice to the painted grass image of a young girl sketching a chalk outline of a soccer field. It was created by artist Saype in a lakeside park, looking up to the 18th-century villa that hosted a 2021 diplomatic summit between then-U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer