In the qualifying group when Andersson started every one of the

In the qualifying group, when Andersson started every one of the 10 matches, only three goals were conceded; it was a difficult statistic to believe in Kobe as Coventry’s goalkeeper Magnus Hedman watched the ball being scraped off his line and bouncing back off the posts. He will certainly not have wanted to watch any replays of Nigeria’s goal, when he got nowhere near a right-wing cross that Mjallby appeared to have left for him to collect.Sweden’s cunning plan to bewilder the opposition is clearly to have three players called Svensson in their squad. When Anders of Southampton starts, as he did on Friday, they field an all-Premiership midfield, full of hard running but short on the flair that Freddie Ljungberg has in abundance for Arsenal but has not yet carried over internationally.In attack, Larsson is, of course, a danger, but it is not clear whether his partner Marcus Allback, who has just signed for Aston Villa (making eight players in the starting XI from English and Scottish clubs) is a straight replacement as target man for the lanky Kennet Andersson or not. “It all counts for nothing if we don’t get a good result in the last game,” said Larsson.

That was one of the more sober assessments on what became an unexpectedly sobering day for Sweden.. Here’s a question which will confound contestants of sports quizzes of the future: which player who had just been relegated with Crewe Alexandra to the Nationwide Second Division participated in an England World Cup game? A clue: he was wearing a bandanna at the time Now it will be clearer. Now it will be clearer.
It will fulfil an implausible dream when the London-born Nigerian full-back lines up against whomever Sven Goran Eriksson deploys on England’s left flank in Osaka on Wednesday. Emile Heskey, maybe? That would be highly appropriate for Sodje, a long-time Liverpool fan.

It would also offer him an ideal opportunity to add the striker’s shirt to the one he has taken off the back of Gabriel Batistuta. In the nicest possible way, of course.Though he didn’t feature in the defeat by Sweden which ended Nigeria’s World Cup hopes, the opening game of their campaign, against Argentina last Sunday, will remain long with the man whose progress has taken him through football’s backwaters. He has travelled from non-League Stevenage to Macclesfield where, under Sammy McIlroy’s management, Sodje’s side gained promotion to the League, Luton Town and Colchester United, before finally reaching the zenith of Gresty Road.Those with an eye for such detail were swift to notice that during the contest at Ibaraki Sodje, who has worn a bandanna in games since he first emerged for Stevenage, was playing without it. “Everything was fine until I got into the tunnel and then the ref told me I had to take it off,” he explained.