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Sweden beat Moldova 2-0 at the Friends Arena on Monday night in Solna near Stockholm, Sweden, to finish third in Group G in the Euro 2016 qualifiers. Goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Erkan Zengin gave the Scandinavian side all three points and they are now assured of a playoff spot after finishing as one of the best third-placed teams. They could have finished second if results had gone their way, but Russia beat Montenegro to hold on to the second spot and automatic qualification.
This was Ibrahimovic’s eighth goal in the Euro 2016 qualifiers, making him the third highest goalscorer after Poland’s Robert Lewandowski (13 goals) and Germany’s Thomas Muller (9 goals). He is tied with Russia’s Artyom Dzyuba who has also scored 8 goals.
The 34-year-old striker opened the scoring in the 24th minute with a sublime piece of skill. With Moldova playing a high line, Ibrahimovic beat the offside trap and made a run spotted by defender Mikael Lustig, who sent a long ball over the defence to the PSG front man.
All Ibrahimovic had to do then was chest the ball down, make a run into the box and beat the goalkeeper. All he took was one touch to round the goalkeeper and then side foot the ball into an empty net from inside the six-yeard box to give Sweden the lead. He showed great skill to chest a ball that was coming in from behind him towards the box so he could score.
Zengin then scored less than two minutes into the second half after Moldova goalkeeper Ilie Cebanu made a mess of a clearance. With Sweden exploiting the high line again, Cebanu ran out of his box to make a headed clearance to prevent Ibrahimovic from scoring another. But the ball only made it as far as John Guidetti who fed Zengin with a simple pass.
With the goalkeeper in no man’s land and no defender on the goal line, Zengin curled the ball in from outside the box to make it 2-0. With Sweden having 62% of the possession, Moldova were never going to trouble them and they finished bottom of the group with zero wins, two draws and eight defeats.
