Sweden v Canada: Women's World Cup 2019 – live!

The starting line-ups in full:

Sweden: Lindahl; Glas, FIscher, Sembrant, Eriksson; Rubensson, Asllani, Seger; Jakobsson, Blackstenius, Rolfo.
Canada: Labbe; Lawrence, Buchanan, Zadorsky, Chapman; Prince, Scott, Schmidt, Beckie; Sinclair, Fleming.

Hello world!

A meeting between Canada, fifth in Fifa’s rankings, and Sweden, No9, looks like a stonking round-of-16 match-up. Sure, both came second in their groups, but to Netherlands and the USA respectively, which in neither case is exactly a humiliation. Canada won two of their three games and lost 2-1 to Netherlands in a game where they had more possession and more shots, so emerge from the whole business in great credit. Sweden won two of their three games and though they were pretty soundly beaten by the Americans in the last, that only happened after they made seven changes with an eye on this match, and so they also emerge in credit. It should be a close-fought affair, as it was when they played in the third-place play-off of the Algarve Cup in March. On that occasion the game was encouragingly close, if less encouragingly sterile: it ended 0-0, with Canada prevailing on penalties.

“They’re a team that always shows up in the big tournaments,” Canada’s Christine Sinclair said of Sweden. “Obviously they won the silver medal in the last Olympics. They’re a world-class team, very well-organized with some great players. It’s going to be a great game.”

“My message is relatively simple tomorrow,” said the Swedish captain Caroline Seger. “It’s about winning or going home. We’ll have to get out there and play at 100% with no regrets when we leave the pitch.”

Anyway, hello! Let’s hope this has all the good things about the teams’ last meeting, and also some goals.