Sweden vs South Korea, World Cup 2018: Emil Forsberg does little to entice Liverpool and Arsenal, scouting report

Against South Korea the man tasked with replacing Zlatan Ibrahimović struggled to make an impression. But would he want a move to the Premier League anyway?

Emil Forsberg is no Zlatan Ibrahimović. Just ask his father.

“He is shy and humble and that is why there are no great interviews with him around,” Leif ‘Foppa’ Forsberg, who played more than 400 league games and scored 150 goals for Sundsvall in the 1980s and early 1990s, once remarked. “He is without a doubt the most boring player to interview. He says the same thing every time.”

However ever since the famously egotistical Ibrahimović announced his retirement from international football – “I made the country my country” he proclaimed with a smirk – it is Forsberg who has had to shoulder the weight of Swedish expectation.

It has been a difficult challenge for the modest 26-year-old with an aversion to the spotlight, and he has occasionally wilted carrying a side which has won only once in eight matches since thrashing Luxembourg 8-0 last October. Against South Korea in Sweden’s opening game of the World Cup 2018 he again struggled to replicate his outstanding domestic form on the international stage; kept quiet for long periods and wasting one particularly good goal scoring opportunity in the second-half.

And yet despite his poor display, it is not difficult to understand why national team manager Janne Andersson has been so determined to build his side around the forward. Forsberg has been a revelation since signing for RB Leipzig from Malmö FF in 2015, becoming a key cog in the rapier-sharp counter-attacking play that has seen the side break into the Champions League a mere two seasons after winning promotion from the 2.Bundesliga in 2015/16.

Nominally a wide midfielder but with the license to drift into the centre of the pitch so as to release the team’s flying full-backs, Forsberg operates as the main link between Leipzig’s attack and defence, an idiosyncratic oasis of calm in the perpetual motion that characterises the team’s high-intensity approach. It is a system utterly devoted to extracting the best out of the Swede, tailor made to his languid movement and talent for gliding between the lines.

Naturally, interest from the usual troupe of European super clubs has followed. Liverpool scouts dispatched to the Red Bull Arena to watch impending arrival Naby Keïta soon returned with glowing reports on the cultured number 10, while more recently there has been speculation that new Arsenal manager Unai Emery intends to make Forsberg his marquee summer signing, willing to part with a fee in the region of £50m.

There is interest outside the Premier League, too. There were murmurings that Atlético Madrid saw him as the ideal partner in crime for the definitely-not-leaving Antoine Griezmann, while the Italian dailies have for two months now insisted that Juventus are at the front of the queue, after claiming the player’s agent Hasan Cetinkaya travelled to Turin in late May.

On the surface at least, the European moves would appear to make a lot more sense for both parties, if only because there is no natural void at either The Emirates or Anfield for Forsberg to fill. At the former the likes of Mesut Özil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Aaron Ramsey and even Jack Wilshere all occupy a very similar role; at the latter it would be difficult for Jürgen Klopp to cram Forsberg into his well-established front three, albeit a swift reunion with Keïta would be intriguing.

Emil Forsberg struggled to impress against South Korea (Getty)

And yet the prospect of Forsberg playing in the Premier League is such a tantalising one, not least because his starring role in a system clearly influenced by the gegenpressing pioneered by Klopp at Borussia Dortmund and transported to Liverpool would appear to suggest he could flourish here. There may not yet be a natural role in England for Forsberg to step into: but should he take the World Cup by storm the bids will no doubt roll in regardless.

So it was a disappointment to see Forsberg make a ponderously slow start in Russia. With all of the pre-match attention focused squarely on him he struggled, restricted to a role on the margins in the first-half and getting little better in the second.

No player on the pitch had more attempts on goal than Forsberg and yet he enjoyed only one real clear-cut chance: receiving the ball in the second-half from Viktor Claesson around 20 yards out from goal, he shifted the ball quickly onto his right foot only to blaze wastefully over the bar with Cho Hyun-woo scrambling for position.

He blazed over in the second-half (Getty)

That was largely it. It was a performance that will have disappointed supporters and scouts alike, although with the assistance of the Video Assistant Referee Sweden still managed to begin their campaign with a win. And perhaps – just perhaps – Forsberg will be utterly unbothered with how his many suitors will have assessed his performance, given his loyalty to Leipzig.

“I am happy [at Leipzig], love football and play as a regular here. I have become a better player,” he recently told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. No, Forsberg is no Ibrahimović and may well be boring too if his own father is to be believed – but he is also a team player with his feet firmly on the ground, in no rush to leave the club at which he made his name.

This was an underwhelming performance and even though big clubs are likely to come sniffing regardless of whether he improves in Russia or not, that does not necessarily mean Forsberg will answer their call.