Football General Manager
- Swedes led 2-0 in the first half
- Had chances to win shootout
- Lionesses rode luck and prevailed
The Swedes had Sarina Wiegman’s defending European champions on the ropes for much of their quarter-final encounter. The Lionesses battled back from two goals down to send an epic encounter all the way to a shootout.
Tired legs and minds began to unravel at that stage, with nine efforts from 12 yards being missed in total before England squeezed through 3-2. Falk, who saved three spot-kicks, had the chance to send Sweden into the last four with their fifth penalty.
After missing the target and firing over the crossbar, Falk told Expressen: “Peter [Gerhardsson, Sweden manager] asked if I could do it and then I said ‘yes’. I just thought I would take a few deep breaths and put it to the left, which I didn’t do. It was f*cking crap and then it was just about focusing on saving the next penalty.”
Gerhardsson said of determining which members of his squad would step up the spot, with it impossible to replicate that pressure in training: “We had a meeting and the players asked us to make a list: from one to eleven. But of course these are incredibly difficult decisions.”
As Sweden head home to mull over what could have been, the Lionesses march on into a semi-final showdown with Italy – as they look to successfully defend the continental crown that they captured on home soil back in 2022.
