Quinn confident Ireland have tools to shock Swedes

Louise Quinn has full confidence the Republic of Ireland can live with the best teams in the world as they look to shock Sweden at the Aviva Stadium on Friday night.

The Girls in Green are in an incredibly difficult Euro 2025 qualification group that also includes France and England, who beat Eileen Gleeson’s side 1-0 and 2-0 respectively in the April window.

All three of Ireland’s opponents are ranked inside the world’s top six, but veteran centre-half Quinn has detected reasons to be optimistic as they chase a Swedish scalp.

“I think we put in more of a performance in the second halves of the games (against France and England) so it’s just trying to monitor the little bits we can improve on,” she said.

“We’re stepping up to a new level of intensity.

“As soon as you’re finished one game you’re like, ‘right we’ve just played France and now we have England and then next is Sweden’. You have to quickly reflect and try figure out what to change.

“We have gone from League B teams (in last autumn’s UEFA Nations League) that are ranked lower than us and now we’ve made this massive jump to play some of the best teams in the world.

“That’s a big, big jump in terms of getting up to that pace. We’ve shown it for one half of a game, that’s there, we can do it. It’s not out of our grasp at all but it’s something we’re going to have to start working on now.”

“We’re going to have our hands full for sure but we’ve had some decent results against them.”

Sweden will be without their trio of Arsenal stars in Stina Blackstenius, Amanda Ilestedt and Lina Hurtig for the trip to Dublin and subsequent rematch in Stockholm the following Tuesday.

They are, on paper, the big gun in the group most vulnerable to slipping up against Ireland, who drew 1-1 in Gothenburg two years ago en route to World Cup qualification. That result and performance is another reason for Ireland fans to approach Friday with some excitement.

Still, Peter Gerhardsson’s outfit are undoubtedly a formidable outfit.

“They’re just so organised, they’re very powerful, physical,” added Quinn. “There’s been tight games, we’ve always put it up to them. But Sweden really do have quality. They show it in tournaments all the time in terms of the quality and how far they can get. They do have special quality.

“They understand the shape, they have this way of playing and they do it almost to perfection every time. We’re going to have our hands full for sure but we’ve had some decent results against them – not a win, and that’s what we want, but we hope at some stage to change that.”

Vera Pauw was at the helm when Ireland plundered a point on Swedish soil and her shadow continues to loom over the squad after last September’s painful split.

Last month she reopened some old wounds when detailing the final stages of her reign on the Episode With Richie Sadlier podcast. However, Pauw did have words of praise for Quinn, who she said was a source of huge support after the coach revealed she’d been raped during her playing days in the Netherlands.

“They supported me also and the one who was the most outspoken was Louise Quinn and that helped me so much,” said Pauw. “She gave me such support. She felt that that showed the team always came first and the health of the players always came first.”

Quinn appreciated the acknowledgement and stressed that her primary motivation is always to do what’s best for the collective.

“I meant every word I said at the time that happened,” added Quinn.

“It’s a very difficult situation to try to deal with. We’re a team, we’re a squad, we stick together.

“I’m quite easygoing, I just get on with things. I just do whatever it takes to make sure I’m there for the team in whatever role that is.

“She praised me there and hopefully she had that respect for me as well, the respect that I had for her. Getting us to the World Cup was huge, massive.”

Watch Republic of Ireland v Sweden in Euro 2025 qualifying on Friday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on an extended Game On with 2fm

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