I got this clear sensation of déjà vu yesterday evening. In fact, I’ve had this experience…well… quite a few times before.  The surprise, the disappointment… Dear blog readers, the Swedish national football team has entered a Euro 2012 and it’s not looking great.

The story:
Well, it’s pretty much the same story every time. The build-up, the hope, the new star players, the optimistic reports in the media, the positive results in the friendly games… All in all – we should be in with a good chance this time, every time.  Along come the big day, the kick off and the trembling first few moments before it all goes horribly wrong.  90 exhausting minutes later “we” have lost the game and not played anywhere near as well as “we” were supposed to do. And then we rage! The media rage, we rage to eachother, we rage on Twitter and Facebook and the experts are desperately trying to figure out what went wrong. Bad coaching? Wrong players? Bad decisions? Who’s to blame for “our” failure? A scapegoat is necessary, as we all know.

The days pass and we slowly start to focus on the next game. Is there a chance? Of course there is a chance! We can still do it, we can still win this! The team – who has taken quite a few bad hits by now – must be eager to show their country and the world what they really can do and that must surely work in “our” favour? Come on Sweden, show ’em what you’ve got!

Well, that is pretty much where we are now… Sweden will play their second game in Euro 2012 on Friday (Sweden v. England) and although we are beaten, we are not defeated! Over 12 000 Swedish fans has travelled to Ukraine to support the team, 6 000 of them are even camping on the same little island! It’s cleverly named Camp Sweden (Read more about it here!) and apart from thousands of people dressed in blue and yellow, the camp have no electricity, no hot water, only a few toilets and apparently, a lack of beer supply. But one thing that’s not lacking is team spirit. Or hope. Or build-up…

So, fellow Sweden lovers, make sure to get behind on Friday evening! We sure need it.

Some useful football-vocabulary:
Heja Sverige! = Go Sweden!
Lag = Team
Lagkänsla = Team spirit
Måååål! = Goooal!
Göra mål = Score
Vinnare = Winner
Halvlek = Half time
Straff = Penalty
Anfallare = Striker
Försvarare = Defender
Målvakt = Goalkeeper
Målstolpe = Goal post
Domare = Referee
Oavgjort = Draw
Tabell = Table
Kvartsfinal = Quarter final
Semifinal = Semi final

Sweden’s offical Euro 2012 song, “Vi mot världen” by Neverstore: