Euro 2020 Preview: How Sweden will look to nullify Spain’s impressive positional play – tactical analysis

Spain and Sweden face off against each other in the Estadio La Cartuja de Sevilla on Monday night in a highly-anticipated game featuring two very interesting sides from a tactical perspective.

Spain, under the guidance of the former Barcelona and Roma manager Luis Enrique, looked really sharp in the qualifying campaign for this summer’s tournament, topping the group with eight wins and two draws from ten matches and going unbeaten. They finished five points ahead of the team in second place, which was Sweden.

Sweden lost just once in their ten games, winning six and drawing three times. However, the one loss suffered was to Spain in a 3-0 defeat at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid.

The Blue and Yellow will be looking for vengeance in this match-up and to put an early puncture in the wheels of Spain’s hopes of winning the competition as they currently one of the bookmakers’ favourites.

This article will be a tactical analysis preview of the game between Spain and Sweden in the opening game-week of Euro 2020. It will be an analysis of the tactics employed by both sides as well as where they should look to hurt each other structurally.

Predicted Lineups and formations

Both teams’ lineups are quite difficult to predict considering the constant interchanging of personnel from both Janne Anderson and Enrique. The formations, on the other hand, will not be so difficult to predict and it is likely that Spain will deploy their typical 4-3-3 that can switch to more a 4-2-1-3 during certain phases whilst Sweden will play their conventional 4-4-2 system that they have become so accustomed to playing under Anderson during his five years in charge.

This is likely to be Spain’s starting eleven against Sweden on Monday night, although there could possibly be one or two alterations. Unai Simon has been Enrique’s preferred goalkeeper in net over David de Gea and Robert Sanchez and so will probably get the nod.

The keeper will be protected by a back four comprising of Jordi Alba, Aymeric Laporte, Eric Garcia, and Marcos Llorente. The main questionable option here is Garcia as the right centre-back. Enrique trialled a centre-back pairing of Pau Torres and Laporte in Spain’s recent pre-tournament friendly against Portugal and they managed to keep a clean sheet, so this partnership is just as likely. However, the reason we have decided to go with Garcia is that he is right-footed whereas both Laporte and Torres are left-footed. Having a left-footed centre-back there would make it more difficult for them to open out and play with their stronger, making them easier to press.