Serbia 1-3 Sweden
UEFA European U21 Championship
Group A
7.45pm, Tuesday 23 June 2009
Malmo, Sweden Championship hosts Sweden cruised into a semi-final showdown against England thanks to a 3-1 win over Serbia, in Malmo, on Tuesday night. The impressive Swedes went ahead through Marcus Berg’s fourth goal of the tournament from Emir Bajrami’s low cross after seven minutes and never looked back.
Bajrami also had a hand in Sweden’s second and decisive goal as he was fouled for a penalty by Nenad Tomovic just eight minutes later. Berg stepped up to make no mistake with the spot-kick and grab his fifth Championship goal.
Serbia finally scored their first of the tournament when Gojko Kacar bundled over the line from a Miralem Sulejmani corner in the 28th minute.
Ola Toivonen restored Sweden’s two-goal advantage only a minute later when he scored with a low shot following some sloppy defending by Serbia.
Any chance of a Serbia revival disappeared just before the break when Tomovic was sent off for a second bookable offence.
And things went even worse for Serbia in the 68th minute when they were reduced to nine men as Nikola Petkovic was shown a straight red card for raising an arm in a challenge with Toivonen.
He might as well have raised the white flag for although Serbia kept battling away there was no way back against a strong Sweden side, which could have scored more and will undoubtedly provide strong opposition for Stuart Pearce’s England side.
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