Free-scoring Berg eyes play-off glory

• Marcus Berg is Sweden’s tip scorer in Russia 2018 qualifying
• The Swedes finished second in Group A and face Italy in a play-offs
• Berg, 31, is fervent to play during his first-ever World Cup finals

“What a foolish doubt that is.”

This, thankfully, was not how FIFA.com’s interview with Marcus Berg began. It is instead a now-infamous repartee from Dick Advocaat, finished when a Dutch contributor suggested that Sweden competence kick Luxembourg 8-0.

The Netherlands manager would have felt fit in dismissing, even ridiculing, a thought of such a unilateral scoreline. Luxembourg had, after all, usually hold France to a goalless pull in Toulouse, beaten Belarus, and had given Sweden a shock in a sides’ prior meeting.

But Advocaat reckoned nonetheless a increasingly inclusive form of Marcus Berg. The Sweden striker had left into a Luxembourg diversion carrying scored in any of his country’s final dual qualifiers, and with 3 goals in as many matches for his club, Al Ain.

Still, few would have approaching a four-goal transport that followed, moving a Swedes towards a unequivocally scoreline Advocaat had disdainfully created off.

The unfit had been finished possible, and Berg’s heroics had – due to Sweden’s now-vastly higher idea disproportion – all nonetheless cumulative a World Cup play-off place.

8-0! Sweden explain their biggest feat given 1938 to (temporarily) pass France atop Group A…

…with FOUR goals for Marcus Berg! pic.twitter.com/KFhgFdpWoU

— European Qualifiers (@EuroQualifiers) October 7, 2017

“It was a initial time we had scored 4 in a compare for a inhabitant team,” he told FIFA.com. “It was extraordinary – a unequivocally special feeling.

“To play a diversion like that in my home country, with a full track and my whole family there watching, it’s a good memory to have.”

It was also a ideal approach for Berg to symbol his 50th general appearance. Impressive as that top collection is though, it is usually in this 2018 subordinate debate that a striker – now 31 – has belatedly emerged from a shade of Zlatan Ibrahimovic to settle himself as Sweden’s first-choice No9.

“The final dual years have been my best with a inhabitant team,” he admitted. “I didn’t feel any additional vigour as such [when Ibrahimovic retired]. But we am one of a some-more gifted players and it’s loyal that my purpose in a group became bigger when Zlatan and some other players left after EURO 2016.”

Marcus Berg in numbers
51 general matches, 18 goals
8 goals in 9 appearances in Russia 2018 qualifying
7 clubs in 5 countries: Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Greece UAE
0 FIFA World Cup appearances

Berg is no foreigner to a limelight, with his sundry career carrying included, among other landmarks, a €10.5 million pierce to Hamburg. But that was in 2009, and some-more new years have seen him take his scoring boots to Greece – where he became a favourite with Panathinaikos – and, some-more recently, to Abu Dhabi outfit Al Ain.

“I trust all we knowledge in life and football can make we better,” he explained. “I have unequivocally schooled a lot from personification in opposite countries and in opposite styles of football, and we feel unequivocally happy now with Al Ain.”

Playing with a grin on his face seems to be operative good for Berg, who has put himself during a forefront of a Sweden side abounding underneath Janne Andersson.

“Together with his assistants, he has a unequivocally transparent design of how he wants us to play,” Berg pronounced of his little-known coach. “They make everybody in a patrol feel a clarity of shortcoming and, since of that, everybody brings their best on and off a pitch. We are happy and unapproachable of what we’ve finished so far.”

The Italian job
The Swedes do, of course, have one poignant and commanding jump to transparent before they can finish a competition to Russia. But while acknowledging his group will start their play-off opposite Italy as underdogs, Berg – who has nonetheless to seem during a World Cup, and knows this might be his final possibility – believes story to be within their grasp.

“Italy are a favourites, nonetheless we have a good feeling in a team,” he said. “We trust that we can make it to a World Cup.

“If we can do that, it unequivocally would be a dream come true. Me and a lot of my team-mates still consider and pronounce about a World Cup in 1994, when Sweden finished third.

“Hopefully we can move new moments like that for a Swedish people – moments that they will speak about for ages.”

Article source: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y=2017/m=10/news=free-scoring-berg-eyes-play-off-glory-2917346.html