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| Team Sweden gets to watch the World Cup in Rio from the sidelines with the rest of us. |
There where a few moments, when Sweden had just scored their second goal, when I sort of though that "wait a minute, maybe this is possible after all ...". But, just as he did with his first goal, Christiano Ronaldo put a swift end to a Sweden looked like they where gaining some serious momentum in the game.
I found two tweets that pretty much say it all:
From disappointment to despair to hope to unbridled joy to complete wretchedness. In 11 minutes. #sverigeportugal #ronaldoisacreep
— Isabelle Kliger (@IKliger) November 19, 2013
Ibrahimovic is quality. Rest of the Swedish team are 2nd/3rd class players. To be fair, they did well to last this long. #sverigeportugal
— Meji Alabi (@mejialabi) November 19, 2013
As Meji says, you can't really blame the Swedish players. Although the first half was a bit lackluster at times (quite understandable given the circumstances) they did all they could. It just simply wasn't enough this time around.
Even former Portuguese national team player Luis Figo said to Swedish Sport Bladet that "it was a pity that Sweden had to face Portugal in this playoff".
As Iceland fell on the finishing line as well, in their game against Croatia, it means Scandinavia will have no team in the World Cup for the first time in 30 years.
ESPN.co.uk Watch Ronaldo's stunning hat-trick. Cristiano Ronaldo notched a hat-trick as Portugal booked a spot in Brazil, while France became the first team to ever come back from a two-goal deficit in a World Cup play-off at the expense of Ukraine. The result also means next year's World Cup will be the first finals without a Scandinavian side since 1982.
Oh, well. I guess we will just have to watch the World Cup games for the pure enjoyment of the game then.
