page_title: Sport in Sweden
section_title: Football
hierarchical_section_title: Sport in Sweden / Prominent athletes, teams and competitions / Football
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Чемпионат мира 2018, группа F, Корея - Швеция. Болельщики сборной Швеции English: 2018 FIFA World Cup - Group F - KOR v SWE
context_page_description: Sport is considered a national pastime in Sweden, and about half of the population actively takes part in sports activities. The most important all-embracing organisations for sports in Sweden are the Swedish Sports Confederation, and the Swedish Olympic Committee. In total over 2 million people are members of a sports club.
  The sports with most participants are football, floorball, equestrian sports, handball, golf, gymnastics and athletics, while the sports with the largest number of television spectators are football, ice hockey, handball, bandy, golf, motor sport and athletics. Ice hockey and football are the main sports. Winter sports are also popular, both in the number of participants and in spectators, while floorball gained large popularity in the 1990s amongst participants, spectators grew in the last five years to outnumber other team sports amongst the spectators. Other popular sports include bandy, basketball, orienteering, tennis and table tennis. Except for basketball, the American sports have not gained much popularity, although American football and baseball are practised.
context_section_description: Some current internationally acclaimed football players from Sweden include Emil Forsberg, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Victor Lindelöf. Historically acclaimed football stars include the trio of players known as Gre-No-Li, who still enjoy legendary status for Italy's Milan. Gre-No-Li were the 1950s football players called Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl, and Nils Liedholm. Other previously active footballs stars include Henrik Larsson, Glenn Strömberg and Freddie Ljungberg.
  The Sweden national football team has seen some success at the FIFA World Cup, finishing second when they hosted the tournament in 1958, and third twice, in 1950 and 1994. Their best showing in the UEFA European Championship came as Sweden hosted Euro 1992. They reached the semi-finals. Something Swedes are proud of is that England did not defeat Sweden from 1968 until 2011. Revered in Italy and England is Sven-Göran Eriksson, the Swede who led the England national team until his resignation after the 2006 World Cup. They also hosted the UEFA European Under-21 Championship in 2009, losing out in the semi-finals on penalties against England. Only one Swedish club has won a major UEFA competition – IFK Göteborg – who won the UEFA Cup in 1982 and 1987. In 1979, Malmö FF reached the final of the 1978–79 European Cup (now known as the UEFA Champions League), but they lost 1–0 to Nottingham Forest in Munich.
caption: Swedish football supporters at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia
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