Sport

Barcelona claim terms agreed with Larsson

Denmark v Sweden: Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona, gave a strong indication yesterday that the club have agreed terms…

Paddy Agnew
Tue Jun 22 2004 - 01:00

Denmark v Sweden: Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona, gave a strong indication yesterday that the club have agreed terms with Henrik Larsson, a free agent after leaving Celtic.

"Larsson needs to finish the championship because he is playing very well and we don't want to disturb him," Laporta said in Lisbon. "But he knows that the offer will be waiting for him. We're interested in him. We know that he's a player with experience. The offer maybe for two years."

Meanwhile, given all the Italian insinuations about the likelihood of a high-scoring draw in this game, it was hardly surprising to hear Danish coach Morten Olsen categorically reject allegations of a potential fix yesterday: "Quite frankly, that's a ridiculous thing to say," said Olsen, "We are honest people and both teams will go out looking to win the match.

Sweden have an advantage knowing that a 0-0 draw will be good enough to take them through, but we can change that by scoring an early goal and that's what we intend to do. We're not in a position where we can think about anyone else."

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Given the complex mathematics of Group C (see Italy v Bulgaria preview), this has become a highly-charged affair. Yet, Olsen is perfectly entitled to feel angry about the pre-match allegations. Anyone who knows even a little bit about Danish and Swedish soccer does both countries a grave dishonour to imagine they might contrive a 2-2 or higher scoring draw to put each other into the next round and keep the Italians out.

Olsen would appear to have a full strength Danish side in which only winger Dennis Rommendahl, who picked up a knee injury in the 2-0 win against Bulgaria, is in doubt.Sweden will look to their dynamic "dream attack" of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Larsson to do the business for them.

PROBABLE LINE-UPS

DENMARK (4-3-3): Sorensen; Helveg, Laursen, Henrikson, N. Jensen; Gravesen, D. Jensen, Jorgensen; Rommendahl, Tommasson; Sand.

SWEDEN (4-4-2): Isaksson; Nilsson, Mellberg, Jakobsson, Edman; Wilhelmsson, Hansson, Svensson, Ljunberg; Ibrahimovic, Larsson.

Referee: Markus Merk (Germany)