Sweden beats Ukraine 1-0 in friendly

Sweden beats Ukraine 1-0 in friendly

Published Aug. 10, 2011 10:10 p.m. ET

Tobias Hysen's injury-time goal gave Sweden a 1-0 win over Euro 2012 host Ukraine in a friendly on Wednesday.

The second-half substitute beat the offside trap and poked the ball past goalkeeper Andriy Dykan to extend Ukraine's poor run of form of only one win in its last 10 games.

The game seemed set to end scoreless as both teams struggled to create clear-cut chances, before Hysen caught Ukraine's inexperienced defense flat-footed.

The first half was primarily a battle for control in midfield, with few chances.

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As the half-hour approached, Swedish goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson was suddenly called into action, first stopping a free kick from Maksym Kalynychenko in the 30th minute, then blocking a shot from Andriy Shevchenko two minutes later after concerted pressure from the host team.

Christian Wilhelmsson came on as an early substitute and should have done better in the 42nd minute when he broke through a hole in Ukraine's defense, but a heavy touch allowed Dykan to gather.

The first chance of the second half came from another mistake in the inexperienced Ukraine defense, missing stalwarts Dmytro Chygrynskiy and Yaroslav Rakytskiy. Alexander Gerndt suddenly found himself behind the last line of defense, but his early shot from just outside the box was easily blocked by Dykan.

Sweden began to apply some pressure. In the 53rd minute, Wilhelmsson worked his way past two defenders into the box, but his left-footed shot was again blocked by the busy Dykan.

Just as both sides were starting to get more men forward, play was broken up by a series of substitutions.

Wilhelmsson cut inside onto his right foot in the 74th minute, letting fly from 20 yards, but Dykan easily got his hands up to parry the ball away.

Ukraine substitute Yevhen Konoplyanka then hit two dangerous free kicks that brought Isaksson into action. First, in the 83rd minute, he hit a dipping free kick from 35 yards that the goalkeeper just tipped over the bar. The second was a curling effort four minutes later that the goalkeeper had to push wide.

But the last word went to Hysen, who gave Ukraine no time to come back.

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Lineups:

Ukraine: Andriy Dykan, Artem Fedetskiy, Yevhen Cheberyachko, Vitaliy Mandzyuk, Oleksiy Hai, Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, Ruslan Rotan (Edmar, 74), Maksym Kalynychenko (Yevhen Konoplyanka, 55), Marko Devic, Andriy Voronin (Artem Milevskiy, 45), Andriy Shevchenko (Oleksiy Antonov, 58)

Sweden: Andreas Isaksson, Mikael Lustig, Daniel Majstorovic, Andreas Granqvist, Oscar Wendt (Behrang Safari, 62), Kim Kallstrom (Pontus Wernbloom, 46), Emir Bajrami (Christian Wilhelmsson, 26) Anders Svensson, Sebastian Larsson (Albin Ekdal, 59), Alexander Gerndt (Jonas Olsson, 82), Johan Elmander (Tobias Hysen, 67).

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