Holders Greece already have a fight on their hands to maintain their grip on the trophy they won so memorably four years ago after second-half goals from Zlatan Ibrahimović and Petter Hansson gave Sweden all three points in their opening Group D match in Salzburg. Otto Rehhagel's side were always on the back foot as they relied on the tactics that had served them so well in Portugal, defending deeply and looking for opportunities to threaten on the counterattack. For all their territorial dominance, however, Sweden were unable to pick a way through a characteristically displined Greece defence, until a moment of inspiration from Ibrahimović who -- with his first international goal since October 2005 -- broke the deadlock in the 67th minute. Hansson added a second five minutes later to leave Greece with plenty to ponder before Saturday's meeting with Russia. Sweden coach Lars Lagerbäck had warned repeatedly in the build-up of the danger posed by Greece from set-pieces, yet within three minutes his own team had proved they were not to be underestimated in that department either -- Hansson heading across goal from a right-wing corner. Ibrahimović and Fredrik Ljungberg, back after knee and rib injuries respectively, then nearly combined to good effect before Anders Svensson thumped a first-time left-foot volley just past the post from 25 metres. Having again reversed his decision to retire from national-team football for this tournament, Henrik Larsson produced an unusually ...
Warning: include(/home/wsocorg/public_html/wsoccer.com/includes/phrases.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/nize3/public_html/wsoccer.com/modules/wall/wall_body.php on line 31
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/wsocorg/public_html/wsoccer.com/includes/phrases.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/nize3/public_html/wsoccer.com/modules/wall/wall_body.php on line 31
