Denmark and Sweden are playing a World Cup international friendly match on Wednesday from Parken Stadion and the match will be streaming live from beIN Sport at 2:15 pm ET as Zlatan Ibrahimovic tries to salvage missing the Brazil 2014 tournament and this comes before another friendly in June with Belgium for the national side.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Sweden dealt with a tough loss against Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo before being eliminated and now the team will not be in the World Cup. The team may have avoided a tough task anyway, as Portugal is among the Group of Death in Group G, which has Germany, the United States and Ghana and is considered to be the toughest of all the groups at the tournament. Ibrahimovic led his team in scoring through the qualifying and he was key for Sweden as they tried to get into the tourney, but now they will be on the outside looking in and many have tried to get Ibrahimovic to come to the tournament anyway but so far he has been resistant.
Neither Denmark or Sweden are in the World Cup this year and now they have pride on the line between the two nations and it comes after Denmark finished 2nd in UEFA World Cup Qualifying Group B. The team has solid depth, but they finished in last place of the second place teams in the groups and did not make it and while Sweden advanced out of Group C in second place, they lost a knockout with Portugal and now have to wonder about how it all went down. The team was outplayed in those matches and lost 4-2 overall and now they come in after another loss in a friendly with Turkey and this will be the first friendly since that matchup in March.
Denmark comes in after losing 1-0 to England in their last friendly and they are looking to play well heading into the tournament just to get some momentum going after being eliminated. The World Cup begins on June 12 and the first match has Brazil taking on Croatia in Group A and that will be on Thursday on ESPN. The two teams here are geographic rivals and they will be looking to get the win, while Ibrahimovic will be playing for some pride after missing out on the tournament.