Sweden boss Janne Andersson has called up six reserve players to train in a separate bio bubble in case any of his current players have to be replaced before the tournament. Two of Sweden’s players, Dejan Kulusevski and Mattias Svanberg tested positive for the corona virus, which is why the need for a few replacements has risen.
Sweden will start their tournament on Monday against Spain in Seville and will most likely have to make do without the services of their star man Dejan Kulusevski. The Juventus winger contracted the virus a few days ago and Swedish fans will be sweating on his fitness ahead of the tournament.
“Tuesday was a busy day with two positive tests. Yesterday we evaluated the situation and what we can do to cover ourselves even more, and that led to us making the decision to create a reserve bubble,” Andersson told reporters.
The six players – Jacob Rinne, Mattias Johansson, Joakim Nilsson, Niklas Hult, Jesper Karlsson and Isaac Kiese Thelin – will be coached by Under-21 boss Poya Asbaghi.
“They’ll be here until Sunday to begin with, Sunday at midnight we will submit a squad to UEFA with the 26 players who will take part (against Spain), after that we can’t change anything if it is not a goalkeeper.”
Sweden have approached the same method as their group stage opponents Spain. Spain, who also have 2 players suffering from COVID (Sergio Busquets and Diego Llorente), have also built a similar bio bubble for the reserve players to train. The bubble will be parallel to the one being used by the main squad and they will be coached by the U-21 coach.
Sweden are placed in Group E which also includes Spain, Poland and Slovakia. On paper, Spain are the strongest side in this group. The 2nd place fight should realistically be between Poland and Sweden.
They will start their campaign against Spain in a few days’ time before playing against Slovakia in St Petersburg, Russia. The all-important match against Poland will be their final group game.
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