Women’s World Cup: Sweden claim third place after beating Australia

Sweden have finished third at the Women’s World Cup after a 2-0 victory over co-hosts Australia.

Fridolina Rolfo’s penalty and Kosovare Asllani’s superb strike was enough for the Swedes to claim bronze for the second successive World Cup.

Australia have still recorded their best ever World Cup finish though, having previously reached the quarter-finals three times.

Rolfo opened the scoring in the first half when the VAR ruled that Clare Hunt had tripped Stina Blackstenius in the penalty area.

Asllani then doubled Sweden’s lead when she powered the ball into the bottom corner from 20 yards out after Blackstenius’s pass.

“It was an incredibly important match and the final 10 minutes were really tough,” said Sweden coach Peter Gerhardsson.

“So when that final whistle went and we had won, there was a great sense of relief and it was a wonderful feeling.

“It’s great to win a match of this magnitude – there’s been a lot of attention paid to this tournament back in Sweden.”

Sweden fully deserved the win with Australia not at their best following their semi-final defeat to England.

Hayley Raso and Clare Polkinghorne had their best chances but were both denied by Sweden goalkeeper Zecira Musovic.

“We wanted to have some hardware to take home, it wasn’t to be,” said captain Sam Kerr.

“We’ve proved to the world – and also within Australia – that we are a footballing nation.”

Head coach Tony Gustavsson said: “We have a massive amount of work to do now to capitalise on this.”

“Now there needs to be long-term investment to really make sure we really benefit from this crossroads moment in women’s football in this country.”

England will meet Spain in the final on Sunday.

Cover Photo: Flag of Sweden” by Florian Prischl is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .