After nearly four decades, a major international tournament is back on Spanish shores, with Spain playing their first match of the European Championship against Sweden at Sevilla this Monday.
Stadium: Estadio de La Cartuja (Sevilla)
Spain vs Sweden – Key Statistics
Spain are unbeaten in their last eight games. The home team have lost just one of their last twenty games (W11, D8). They have failed to score on three occasions in their previous 20 games. Spain have won twice as many games (6) against Sweden as they’ve lost (3) in their previous 14 clashes.
Sweden are on a five game-winning run. They have kept three clean sheets from their last five games. They have scored two or more goals in five of their previous seven games.
Head to Head
6 Spain wins; 5 draws; 3 Sweden wins; Spain scored 23 goals against 15 by Sweden (in total 14 matches).
Recent Performance
Spain: WDWWDW
Sweden: LWWWWW
Spain
Three-time European Championship winners are back in the Euros, looking to take the continent by storm as they did in 2010 and 2012.
Luis Enrique’s side are alongside Germany, two of the most successful European Championship teams, and are making their seventh successive Euro finals this summer.
They head into this summer’s tournament as one of the most in-form teams as they won four of their last six games, including a 6-0 thrashing of fellow Euro mates, Germany.
Such form has seen them tagged as one of the favourites for this year’s trophy, and they will aim to live up to that billing when they take on Sweden in their first game.
La Roja have been put in the same group as Poland and Slovakia. But they will see their match against Sweden as the most difficult of the tie and will hope to put in a solid performance to ensure that they begin their campaign on a high note.
Possible Spain line-ups
Despite the Covid-19 outbreak in the squad that is threatening to derail their campaign, Enrique still has a good pool of players to select from.
Although midfielder Diego Llorente has tested negative for the coronavirus, he is expected to sit out this game while Sergio Busquets remains unavailable for La Roja.
Unai Simon; Marcos Llorente, Aymeric Laporte, Pau Lopez, Jose Gaya; Thiago Alcantara, Rodri, Fabian Ruiz, Ferran Torres, Alvaro Morata, Mikel Oyarzabal.
Unavailable
Sergio Busquets and Diego Llorente
If you ask me to sign up for losing tomorrow but winning the next two and qualifying first in group then … I’d be OK with that. But the truth is the first game is like taking the temperature: ‘Are we OK?’ That’s what it’s like. The first game can serve for generating confidence, seeing how much the competition means to us, and if you win in a way that shows your qualities then that’s a great way to start.
Luis Enrique, Spain
Sweden
Janne Andersson and Sweden are looking to take Europa by storm this summer as they mix up with the best teams of the continent.
The coach has transformed this Swede side into a good team, with the 58-year-old boasting a winning ratio of 50.91% since taking over in 2016.
However, the Blagult so far have nothing to show on their excellent record; they will hope the story is different this summer.
They head into this tie as one of Europe’s most-inform teams and are seen as dark horses this year. Five wins from their last five games will give them a confidence boost as they aim to qualify from a complex group.
Possible Sweden line-ups
Like Spain, Sweden also had two players stricken by the coronavirus as Dejan Kulusevski and Mattias Svanberg are unavailable for this game after contracting the virus.
Robin Olsen; Mikael Lustig, Victor Lindelof, Marcus Danielsson, Ludwig Augustinsson; Viktor Claesson, Albin Ekdal, Kristoffer Olsson, Emil Forsberg; Marcus Berg, Alexander Isak.
Unavailable
Dejan Kulusevski and Mattias Svanberg
Playing Spain away is one of the toughest challenges in the world of football today. It’s an exciting challenge and we need an absolute top performance, but we’ve had those in the past and I hope we can get another one. We have threatened them in the past. We know that if we can get everything to click, we absolutely have a chance on Monday.
Janne Andersson, Sweden
Betting Odds
Spain : Draw : Sweden :: 1.33 : 4.75 : 11.00
| Spain Goal | Sweden Goal | Betting Odds |
| 1 | 0 | 6.50 |
| 2 | 0 | 6.50 |
| 3 | 0 | 9.00 |
| 0 | 0 | 10.00 |
| 1 | 1 | 10.00 |
| 2 | 1 | 10.00 |
Prediction
Spain 2-1 Sweden
