Sweden were torn apart by Norway in Oslo on Saturday, falling 3-0 by halftime in the first of two warm-up matches before the World Cup. Jørgen Strand Larsen struck after eight minutes, Norway doubled the lead 10 minutes later and added a third from a corner a few minutes before the break.
The first half left little room for argument. Norway had already put Sweden under heavy pressure at Ullevål, and by the time Graham Potter emptied his bench with nine substitutions after the interval, the game had changed from a contest into damage control. Sweden did improve, and Alexander Isak later cut the deficit to 3-1 by dribbling past Sondre Langås and finishing on his own, but a Sebastian Nanasi header was ruled out for offside and Norway also had a fourth goal disallowed for offside early in the second half.
That made the margin less severe on the score sheet than it felt on the night, but the frustration was plain afterward. Jesper Karlström said it was clear how frustrating it was to be overrun and that the squad could take clips from the match to learn how Sweden want to play and how they do not want to look. Lindelöf took a different line, saying the loss would not affect the group and that it was only a friendly, while Potter called it a very tough evening and admitted Sweden were not as good as they wanted to be, especially in the first half.
The gap matters because this was not just any friendly. It was Sweden’s first of two preparation games, played two weeks before their World Cup premiere, and Potter said Norway were ahead in how long the teams had worked together. That is exactly the kind of detail a warm-up match is supposed to expose. Sweden now have only a short window to decide whether the lessons from Oslo are enough before they face Greece on Thursday in Solna.
