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

5 mins: So far every forward pass since that early Asllani overhead has been capably dealt with by this or that defender, Glas being the latest. We’re very much still in the early sparring stage.

3 mins: Lawrence controls a poor pass quite beautifully on the right flank, and then overhits her own pass straight out of play.

1 mins: Sweden start on the front foot, but Asllani’s overhead flick bounces too far ahead of Blackstenius, and Labbé comes out to claim.

1 min: And they’re off! Sweden get the game started, Asllani doing the honours.

The anthems have been sung and coins have been tossed. Football is but a few moments away.

The Swedish anthem is being sung. As the players line up I’m reminded of how disappointed I’ve been with the mascots’ kit for this tournament. It looks like nobody thought about it until about 15 minutes before the first game, and were then extremely relieved to find something vaguely acceptable in the back of a cupboard.

“Allow me to paint a picture,” writes Julian Menz. “A stone’s throw to the shore of beautiful Lake Siljan (three hours from Stockholm, google it). Sun shining, the lake almost mirror-like. Sat with my Swedish wife’s family and a (worryingly large and increasing) number of friends. We have BBQ-d, we have beer and wine (Swedes tend to bring their own, but hej, we have no close neighbours). I just hope tonight’s match doesn’t descend into yet another VAR farce.” Yeah, good luck with that.

The players are in the tunnel, and looking forward to some damn fine anthem-singing.

Here’s some pre-match reading, courtesy of Eni Aluko:

They have to share the arms on their armchairs, though, like in the economy section of an aeroplane. That must be annoying. Every half-time must turn into a competition to be the first to jab out your elbows and claim the shared arms. And maybe some drink-holders would come in handy, too, given that the occupants of the dressing-rooms will often be engaged in rehydration. Otherwise, it looks lovely.

A peek inside the dressing rooms tells us that the players get unusually comfy-looking armchairs to sit in:

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.