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Peter Gerhardsson’s plans for Monday night sounded blissful. He had set a while apart for a swim. He would have a chunk to eat, after which retire to his room at Auckland’s palatial Cordis Resort to hearken to some music.
He additionally needed to make additional inroads into “Resonance,” the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa’s examination of how we work together with the world. Gerhardsson is having fun with it enormously; his readiness to debate it makes that abundantly clear. He figured he may match all of that in and nonetheless be in mattress by 9 p.m. He does have a World Cup semifinal to teach on Tuesday, in any case.
Ought to that final prospect have been inflicting Gerhardsson, the supervisor of Sweden’s ladies’s soccer crew, any type of stress or pressure as he addressed the information media a day earlier than his crew performs Spain at Eden Park, he hid it extraordinarily effectively.
He has, in any case, been right here earlier than: That is his fourth main event in control of his homeland, and it’s the fourth time he has made the semifinals. Sweden completed third within the 2019 World Cup, gained the silver medal within the 2020 Olympics, after which reached the final 4 ultimately summer season’s European Championship. By this stage, it’s acquainted floor.
He was relaxed sufficient, then, not solely to debate his studying materials however the philosophical imprint of Johan Cruyff; the artwork of scrapbooking; and his longstanding — if, being utterly sincere, barely dwindling — custom of calling his mom earlier than video games to solicit her recommendation. (He doesn’t do it fairly so usually now, he stated, as a result of he’s “sufficiently old to make my very own selections.” Gerhardsson is 63.)
Solely as soon as did he betray even the merest trace of irritation: on the lingering notion that Sweden’s progress to the semifinals previous each the USA, the reigning champion, and a broadly admired Japan facet has are available in a style which may not be described as aesthetically pleasing.
Sweden’s main objective scorer, for instance, is Amanda Ilestedt, a central defender who wouldn’t have been regarded earlier than the event as an apparent contender to win the World Cup’s Golden Ball. “No one was anticipating her to try this,” her teammate Fridolina Rolfo stated.
Ilestedt, although, has now plundered 4 objectives — a tally bettered within the event solely by Japan’s Hinata Miyazawa — all from set items, both on the first or second take away. She has proved notably adept at rising victorious when the ball is ricocheting across the penalty space within the aftermath of a nook or free kick. Or, in Gerhardsson’s fairly extra poetic rendering, “choosing up the fruit when it has fallen from the tree.”
That, partially, illustrates why Sweden has proved such a magnet for euphemism. Gerhardsson’s crew has variously however constantly been described all through this event as “direct,” or “efficient,” or “bodily.” Jorge Vilda, the Spanish coach, added “sturdy” to that record.
All of those phrases imply the identical factor: Sweden is a set-piece crew, a long-ball crew, a percentages crew. The allegation is unstated, however it’s loud, and it’s clear: Sweden is likely to be successful, however it’s doing it in a fashion that’s — on some ethical or religious or philosophical stage — fallacious.
Someplace beneath his placid floor, that suggestion clearly irks Gerhardsson. “One in every of our strengths is about items,” he stated Monday. “Each within the offense and within the protection.” He grew to become just a bit extra animated. “It isn’t only a energy: We’ve got gamers who’re very technically expert at it. We apply rather a lot.”
It isn’t all they’re, he stated, noting, “It is only one approach for us to win video games.” However even when it was, would that actually be such an issue? Gerhardsson needed to make this level very clearly: Set items, he stated, “are a part of the sport.”
They’re, after all. His logic is impeccable. His job, and that of his gamers, is to win soccer matches. It isn’t to win in any specific fashion. Nobody sort of play that achieves that objective is extra virtuous than every other. In addition to, aesthetics are subjective: Gerhardsson, for what it’s price, likes Sweden’s combination of excessive strain and dogged, intense marking. “It’s good soccer for me,” he stated.
The faint disregard for Sweden, as an alternative, says extra about soccer’s fashions than it does concerning the inherent price of the crew. Not like its opponent on Tuesday, Spain, Sweden doesn’t declare to espouse or symbolize any specific philosophy. It’s involved much less with how the sport as an entire ought to be performed and extra with how any particular person match is likely to be gained.
If it has an id, certainly, it’s a reactive one. “We’re excellent at adapting,” the midfielder and captain Kosovare Asllani stated. “We’ve got an excellent crew across the crew. They do loads of work for us to arrange the techniques to face any crew within the event. We’ve got other ways to face totally different video games. They permit us to be absolutely ready for anybody.”
That flexibility meant the Swedes couldn’t be bodily intimidated by the USA and couldn’t be undone by Japan’s slick, creative counterpunches. They may have required a penalty shootout, settled solely by the narrowest margin conceivable, to beat the U.S., however towards Japan they have been able to grind their opponent down. Ilestedt opened the scoring from a nook. Filippa Angeldal settled the sport with a penalty.
It was put to Gerhardsson that Spain may greatest be considered a mix of these two opponents: simply as sturdy, simply as imposing because the U.S., however no much less technically gifted than Japan. He agreed. Spain is a superb crew, he stated. He has at all times been a Cruyffian at coronary heart, an admirer of the intricate, technical soccer that Spain has come to characterize.
He didn’t sound intimidated. He didn’t sound troubled in any respect, in reality. The thrust of the e-book by Rosa on his evening desk, as Gerhardsson explains it, is that we — as people — will not be good at accepting that we have no idea what will occur. To him, that has at all times been the fantastic thing about soccer: It’s unpredictable.
An unheralded Sweden crew may get previous the USA and Japan. It’d run into Spain, lengthy hailed as ladies’s soccer’s coming pressure, and be anticipated to be swept apart by its sheer philosophical purity. Or it’d end up otherwise. “Possibly they’re the right opponents for us,” Gerhardsson stated of Spain. He doesn’t know. He’s OK with that. He’s, in reality, solely relaxed about it.
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