Pia Sundhage knows exactly what the moment feels like when Sweden beats Germany in a major tournament. When those two foes play for Olympic gold inside the Maracana on Friday (4:30 p.m. ET), the latest challenge for the Swedish women's national team coach is that none of her players share the same knowledge.

A tournament of obstacles overcome comes down to one that seems forever insurmountable.

Host of the Women's World Cup in 1995, Sweden lost its opener and trailed Germany by two goals in the second half of its second game. But fueled in part by Sundhage's tying goal in the 80th minute, the Swedes rallied to win. The tournament ultimately didn't end in glory for them, but it at least ended respectably in the knockout rounds.

The encore has been a long time coming. Friday's final will be the 10th meeting in a major tournament (i.e. European Championship, Olympics and World Cup) between the northern European countries since the '95 World Cup.

Germany is 9-0-0 in that span. And in almost 14 hours of soccer across nine games, Sweden scored just three goals.

Stina Blackstenius, Sweden's goal scorer in its quarterfinal against the United States in Brasilia, was not yet born when Sweden last beat Germany in a major event.

No wonder, then, that when asked to favor the media with a song during a news conference Thursday in Rio, Sundhage turned to Bob Dylan as inspiration.

"Times, they are a changin'," she sang.

A program with a proud history, Sweden is an unlikely finalist in these Olympics.

Forget for a moment the team's results here in Brazil. Sweden wasn't even supposed to be in the Rio Games. There is no Olympic qualifying tournament in UEFA, the European governing body. The Olympics are awarded to the teams that perform the best in the previous year's World Cup. And no one, the Swedes included, would have described their performance in Canada as the best of anything. Three draws in group play allowed them to slip through to the knockout phase as a third-place team a year ago, but they were quickly dispatched once there.

England's third-place World Cup finish should have sent it to Brazil alongside France and Germany. Instead, with England unable to play, Sweden gained a reprieve in a four-team, round-robin playoff that also included the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.

Sweden forward Sofia Jakobsson said this week that it was in those games played in March -- 1-0 wins in its first two games and the 1-1 draw that was all it needed in the final game against the host Dutch -- that this particular group of players honed the park-the-bus defending used to such great effect against the United States and Brazil in recent days.

That was the mountain Sweden had to climb before it lost to Brazil 5-1 in its second game in this tournament. And then came the penalty kick shootouts against both the United States and Brazil to reach Friday's final.

And who stands in Sweden's way? The Germans. Of course.

Germany sent Sweden home from the 2015 World Cup in unforgiving fashion, a 4-1 win in the first round of an expanded knockout round.

Germany also denied Sweden its other opportunities to win a title: a 2-1 result in the 2003 World Cup final in Carson, California, and a 1-0 result in the 2001 Euro final. The Germans beat the Swedes for an Olympic bronze in Athens in 2004. They beat them in various group stages.

It wasn't said about this rivalry, or even about the correct gender in this instance, but never has the oft-repeated Gary Lineker quip been more accurate.

Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes, and at the end, the Germans always win.

Yet these Germans might be bemused to find themselves in the role of Goliath, given the path they followed to Rio. Although fully capable of the piercingly skeptical stoicism one might ascribe a German technician in such settings, coach Silvia Neid was as relaxed and jovial as her old foe and friend from Sweden. (Neid was on the field when Sundhage scored that goal in 1995.) She sounded like a coach appreciative of a trip that wasn't a given for her final game in charge.

This German team has been far from the nearly flawless operation that won World Cups in 2003 and 2007. Eliminated by the United States in a World Cup semifinal a year ago, it lost again to the Americans in a quasi-competitive game this spring. More significantly, it lost to Canada in the group stage in Brasilia after scrambling just to earn a draw against Australia days earlier Sao Paulo. The loss was its first in the Olympic group stage since the first tournament in 1996.

Gone are familiar faces like goalkeeper Nadine Angerer and, still in her prime, Celia Sasic. An ankle injury in the Olympic opener against Zimbabwe ended Simone Laudehr's tournament. The injuries that kept Nadine Kessler out of the World Cup eventually ended her career at 28 years old. Now 30, Lena Goessling's role is diminished.

Much to her credit, if also out of necessity, Neid is using her final run as coach in part to prepare the way for successor Steffi Jones. In its semifinal win against the same Canadian side that earlier defeated it, Germany started seven players 25 years old or younger. There is experience on the bench, but Germany is in the midst of its own youth movement.

"I don't think we have a psychological advantage at all," Neid said via a translator. "As a matter of fact, on the contrary, because Sweden has played here before, they know atmosphere, they know the stadium, if anything, they would have an advantage."

So will any German vulnerability tempt Sweden out of the bunker it deployed with such success, and curiously to so much criticism, against the United States and Brazil?

Even Sundhage, prone by her own admission to say anything, kept her plan to herself. But asked yet again about the style that has critics beyond just Hope Solo, she offered a rebuttal that sounded like someone unbowed.

"My responsibility is to try to find a way to win," Sundhage said. "That is all that matters, especially [Friday]. That discussion whether the women's game is going one direction or another, that's very interesting, but it's not my task to make sure we have that discussion."

Gold will be decided not by the past but the present, whether these Germans are ready to break down these Swedes. Still, with so much of the history of a rivalry present on the pitch, it is difficult to ignore. Germany will remain Sweden's biggest challenge. Until it isn't.

"Germany is a very good team, and more so they have a great history and have some big wins behind them," Sundhage said. "Then again, they've been winning against us a couple of times -- too many times, in my opinion.

"I think it's about time to change that, and we're going to try."

Source:
courtesy of ESPN

by Graham Hays

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