Austria v Sweden background
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Article summary
Austria and Sweden will need no introduction in Group G having met in qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, their two fixtures each ending 2-1 to the home team.
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Article body
Also paired in 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification, Austria and Sweden are gearing up for another close-fought encounter as they come together in UEFA EURO 2016 Group G.
Match background
• Austria have had marginally the better of their 33 previous meetings with Sweden, with the record W16 D5 L12 (W10 D4 L1 at home – W5 D1 L10 as the away team, those games including one friendly in London). The teams have met twice on neutral territory: in Gelsenkirchen in a play-off for the 1974 World Cup finals, which Sweden won 2-1, and in Buenos Aires in the 1978 World Cup group stage, when Hans Krankl's 42nd-minute penalty earned Austria a 1-0 win.
• The sides' only previous UEFA European Championship encounters were in qualifying for the 1972 finals. Georg Ericson's Sweden beat Leopold Stastny's Austria 1-0 in Solna on 26 May 1971, Jan Olsson (62) scoring the only goal, while Josef Stering (23) was on target as Austria turned that result on its head in the Vienna rematch on 4 September 1971.
• Those fixtures set something of a pattern for the sides' 12 competitive encounters, in which Austria's record is W6 D1 L5 (W4 D1 L0 at home – W1 D0 L4 in Sweden) – including a win and a draw on neutral territory. Only once – Austria's 2-0 World Cup qualifying win against Sweden on 10 June 1972 – has there been a winning margin of more than a single goal in those fixtures.
• The sides' 2014 World Cup qualifying encounters were typical. Austria won 2-1 at home on 7 June 2013 (David Alaba 26, Marc Janko 32p; Johan Elmander 82), then lost by the same margin in Solna on 11 October (Martin Olsson 56, Zlatan Ibrahimović 86; Martin Harnik 29).
• Austria's record in 15 UEFA youth and age-group games against Sweden is W2 D6 L7, those two wins coming in the nations' most recent meetings at this level, in qualifying for the 2013 UEFA European Under-19 Championship and 2014 U17 tournament.
• At club level Austrian sides have had the better of the nations' encounters, with the record W10 D3 L6. The Austrian side has won the last four meetings.
