Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP (Getty)
It’s been over twelve years since Sweden last won a World Cup game, so needless to say, fans were getting a little restless with the lack of success.
To make things worse, Sweden was thrown into Group F, which consists of Germany, Mexico and South Korea. Not exactly the trio of death, but there was no way Sweden was going to be favorited in any of those initial matches.
So when Sweden and South Korea matched up for the first time since 2005, most assumed it would be South Korea coming away with the win as they haven’t lost an opening round match since 1998. Even crazier? Sweden had not won any of their opening round matches since 1958.
That all changed thanks to the foot of Andreas Granqvist, who helped Sweden claim a 1-0 victory in their first match of the 2018 World Cup, which had Swedish fans going crazy. So crazy, in fact, they reportedly drank an entire Russian town dry.
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According to Lee Roden at the Local Sweden, fans in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia (the city that hosted the match) got so excited they hit up every bar they could and drank every ounce of alcohol in the town.
“Yup, some places had already run out by yesterday. The city has never had to arrange something on this scale before, so they’ve been completely taken by surprise,” Swedish Football Association’s head of security Martin Fredman said.
“The beer in central Novgorod ran out today after the Swedish success. That alone shows how many of us there are here and the party atmosphere there is,” supporter Carl Eriksson told local newspaper Corren on Monday following Sweden’s win. The city bars had already been hit hard from fans before Sweden’s historic win, but once that match concluded they stood no chance.
Hopefully Sochi will be better prepared as Sweden and their beer-thirsty fans will take on Germany on June 23rd.
