Sweden captain surprised by Germany lack of 'balance'

AFP  |  Gelendzhik 

Ahead of a crunch Group F tie with on Saturday said today he was "surprised" by holders' tactics in their 1-0 opening loss to

"were quite offensive and made some quick contras, did some two against ones and three against twos," said the 33-year-old

"It surprised me a little bit that they didn't have more balance in the team, they are probably going to change that against us," he said.

"We thought of course was the favourite to win the group but now they have a more difficult task, to win two games in a row," he added.

Asked if Janne Andersson's men can copy the blueprint for success, said "don't play as Mexico play".

"We are not the same type of players, we need to be very compact in defence and very solid".

Even though a draw against Germany would be considered a good result, and midfield playmaker Emil Forsberg, source of much of Sweden's creativity, said his team "want to win every game".

"But first of all we have to defend well and then see what opportunities we get to win the game," said the

Scoring goals at major tournaments has proved a struggle though for At Euro 2016, they managed just one, an own-goal conceded by

Then it took a (VAR)-assisted penalty scored by Granqvist to seal the win against

Shorn of talisman who retired after Euro 2016, the unsung Swedes scored 26 goals during qualifying.

But the goals have dried up since their playoff win against last November. During a warm-up series of two defeats and two scoreless draws, they scored just once.

"We score when we need to, I'm not worried about that," said "Even if it is 1-0 or 2-0 it doesn't matter for me, as long as we score in important games I'm happy," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Wed, June 20 2018. 22:00 IST