ENGLAND 1  (Beckham pen: 28 mins)    Sweden 1 (Mild 44)            World Cup football home page
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This friendly match took place on November 10, 2001 at Old Trafford in Manchester, before England knew they would have to play Sweden again in the group stages of the World Cup 2002.
 
The England team was:
 
                                                        Martyn
 
  G Neville                       Southgate                          Ferdinand                Carragher
  (Mills 58)                                                                                               (P Neville 86)
 
  Beckham                       Butt                                  Scholes                     Sinclair
                                      (Murphy 58)                      (Lampard 86)            (Anderton 58)
 
 
                                       Heskey                             Phillips
                                       (Sheringham 58)                (Fowler 58)
 
Subs not used: Wright, Powell, Keown, Ehiogu, Smith, Walker
 
Sweden: Hedman (Kihlstedt 45), C Andersson, Michael Svensson, Mjallby,(Jakobsson 62), Edman, Linderoth (D Andersson 45), Alexandersson (Soderstrom 84),  Mild, Magnus Svensson (Anders Svensson 45), Allback, Ibrahimovic (Osmanovski 74)
 
Sven-Goran Eriksson was born in Sweden and so this match would have meant a lot to him, but in truth it was not a great game of football to watch and England could have not expected more than the draw they ended up with. England have not beaten Sweden since 1968!
 
Michael Owen was recovering from injury and did not play. In the papers before the match, it was widely reported that Paul Scholes was not on the best of terms with his Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson for effectively refusing to play in a Worthington cup game up front.
 

                                                                

The game started with lots of mistakes being made but the Swedish goalkeeper (Hedman) made a great save from Beckham's free kick after 18 minutes, pushing the ball round the post for a corner.
 
After 28 minutes England were ahead. Heskey gave a pass to Sinclair who ran through on the left side of the penalty box - he was attempting to play the ball back across into the middle of the penalty area under challenge from C Andersson and fell over - the referee (Colombo) mistakenly awarded a penalty which Beckham converted.
 
On 44 minutes Sweden equalised. Edman took a free kick which passed underneath the England wall. The ball came off Nigel Martyn and Mild put the ball in the net. Martyn will not be very proud of that moment but the wall should have done a better job too.
 
After 58 minutes Fowler replaced Phillips up front, Mills came on for G Neville at right back and Anderton and Murphy came on for Butt and Sinclair in midfield. England then started to take control of the game a little more. However, there were few chances after this and the game finished as a draw.
 
Who did well: Nicky Butt had a good game in midfield but Danny Murphy (in his first start) had an excellent game. David Beckham had his usual good game for England.
 
Who did not have a great game: Phillips was quiet and will have to do well for Sunderland in the coming months to fight his way back into the squad. Martyn also looked a bit at edge in goal, but fortunately for him, he is still seen as the No 2 goalkeeper to Seaman (who is getting injured more and more now) - his only other major competition for the England goalkeeper appears to come from Wright at the moment.
 
After losing the previous friendly to Holland 2-0 (on 15 August) it had been noticed that England have been doing better in competitions recently than in friendly games! In 2002, however, the England players will have to put in better performances in the friendly matches as competition for World Cup places becomes a greater incentive for them.