Today I'm going back 20 years to 2001 and England's International Friendly against Sweden played at Old Trafford, Manchester due to the commencement of Wembley's reconstruction.
The game formed part of the build up to the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea with England having already qualified for the tournament. It gave manager Sven-Goran Eriksson the opportunity to experiment with the line-up and the game saw international debuts for West Ham's Trevor Sinclair and Liverpool's Danny Murphy as well as Darren Anderton's final international appearance for England.
Anderton was at Spurs for 12 years between 1992 and 2004 but he made only 358 appearances for the club scoring 48 goals and seemed to be missing as often as he actually made the starting line-up earning him the rather cruel nickname of "Sick Note" from many supporters. Despite his absences at club level, Anderton always seemed to be available to play for England when the major tournaments came around and he won 30 caps for England scoring 7 goals and appeared in Euro96 and the 1998 World Cup in France. Famously, Anderton was inches away from scoring the goal that would have beaten the Germans at the Euro 96 Semi-Final at Wembley when his shot hit the post.
In the featured game England grabbed the lead in the 28th minute thanks to a penalty scored by captain David Beckham that should never have been given. Trevor Sinclair, stretching for the ball in the box slipped and went down with the referee spotting the foul that never was. To Sinclair's credit I don't think that he was looking for a penalty but, and this is no doubt incredibly naïve on my part, why couldn't he have informed the referee that there wasn't any contact and that it wasn't a penalty? Certainly, if you can't do that in a Friendly then it's never going to happen when the stakes are higher. The Swedes had every right to feel aggrieved and they eventually restored parity just before half time following a free kick that was spilled by Leeds United's Nigel Martyn straight into the path of Hakan Mild who pounced for the equaliser.
The game ended 1-1 and maintained Sweden's remarkable undefeated run against England. England had last defeated the Swedes in May 1968 and it would take thirteen further attempts and 43 years before England won against them again in November 2011 in a Friendly.
One name on the Swedish team sheet that night was that of a man who would go on to have a truly remarkable career: the Ajax player, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, making only his fifth appearance for his national side. Born in Malmo, Sweden to Bosnian Muslim parents, Ibrahimovic can be regarded as one of the world's greatest ever strikers having scored 505 goals in 843 club appearances (to date). Interestingly Ibrahimovic, who first appeared on the scene in 1999, has never spent more than four seasons with any one club in a more than 21 year career, having played for Malmo, Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan, Paris St-Germain, Manchester United, LA Galaxy and (currently) AC Milan again. Possibly this can be explained by Ibrahimovic's prickly personality and huge ego? However, when you are as talented as Zlatan, it's easier to forgive his arrogance. In fact it almost makes him endearing. I loved the title of his autobiography which conveys a sense of this: it's called "I am Zlatan". Ibrahimovic had a very difficult childhood due to his parents divorce, siblings with drug problems, a heavy drinking father and involvement in shoplifting and petty crime. Despite all these hurdles, he would go on to make 118 appearances for Sweden scoring 62 goals making him Sweden's all-time top scorer. On balance I rather like and admire Zlatan.
CRB Match No. 1244
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