Source Notes

Three months after the disappointment of their controversial World Cup exit to Argentina in St-Etienne, there was more sorrow for Glenn Hoddle's England as they began the Euro 2000 qualifying campaign with the worst possible result - a defeat.  England's line-up in the Rasunda was an adventurous one, with an attack-minded midfield that included Anderton and Le Saux as wing-backs, but there needed to be more ball-winners to protect a three-man defence.

England enjoyed a terrific start to the match, Alan Shearer scoring after just two minutes from a free-kick, and they were dominant for the first twenty minutes or so.  Then a lot of the passing started to go awry and the Swedes took advantage by charging forcefully at a hard-pressed English defence.  The frustrating thing for Hoddle was that both Swedish goals were definitely avoidable.  For the first on the half-hour, Seaman spilled a clever Schwarz free-kick and Andre[as] Andersson followed up smartly with a shot that deflected off Adams and wrong-footed his goalkeeper.

Worse was to follow for the visitors as Kaamark's cross eluded Southgate, Seaman failed to advance to meet the danger and the ball bounced conveniently off Scholes for Mjallby to sneak in for a header.  2-1 to Sweden.  England then endured a difficult spell in which there seemed to be minimal contact between midfield and attack.  Clearly the team was struggling, with no obvious prospect of getting that precious equaliser.

Shearer, finally, had a chance with a header from Anderton's corner.  But it came to nothing and when the Tottenham player later limped off, England's shape suffered even more.  Their two central strikers, Owen and Shearer, were forced to head for the wings to try to get the ball.  All in all a bad game for England, with Ince sent off.  But Bulgaria, their next opponents, had gone down 3-0 at home to Poland.  Surely there were points up for grabs at Wembley next month.  - The Official F.A. and England Yearbook 1999-2000.

TheFA.com
Original newspaper reports
Rothman's Yearbooks
F.A. Yearbook
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CG