Sweden vs Italy. FIFA World Cup European Qualifying Play-off Semi-finals.
Friends ArenaAttendance49,193.
Friday 10 November 2017 19:11, UK
Sweden and Italy meet on Friday night in the first leg of their World Cup 2018 play-off, live on Sky Sports Football.
Italy - the world champions in 2006 - last missed out on the summer finals in 1958.
Threatening to condemn the Azzurri to the same fate they suffered 60 years ago are Sweden, who finished second in their qualifying group, behind France but ahead of the Netherlands.
The Italians got a taste of how tenacious the Scandinavians can be when they squeezed past them 1-0 in a group game at Euro 2016.
There are doubts over Italy's starting line-up at the Friends Arena as head coach Giampiero Ventura has seen his striking options dwindle over the last few days.
Ciro Immobile and Torino's Andrea Belotti are not fully fit and on Thursday Simone Zaza of Valencia limped out of training after exacerbating a pre-existing knee injury. He will travel, though.
Sweden's star in the post-Zlatan Ibrahimovic era has been Emil Forsberg, the RB Leipzig winger who supplies ammunition to Marcus Berg and John Guidetti.
He is not among the six players - Andreas Granqvist, Victor Lindelof, Emil Krafth, Jakob Johansson, Martin Olsson and Jimmy Durmaz - risking suspension for the return leg at San Siro, yet head coach Andersson wants to prioritise discipline.
He told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: "The players must absolutely not pick up any further bookings. It's very important.
"Italy are major players in world football and have been very good historically, but now it's simply a case of their players coming to face our players.
"What has happened historically is quite uninteresting, I think. When the referee blows to start the match tomorrow, it's a whole new game."
