Substitute Is Spark for Swedes

CHICAGO — The mark of a good team is depth of talent, and Sweden proved that once again Saturday afternoon, advancing to the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup despite losing its top goal scorer.

The Swedes’ match against Ghana at Soldier Field was barely five minutes old when Hanna Ljungberg injured her knee and had to be substituted.

Ljungberg had scored twice in Wednesday’s 3-1 victory over Australia and is Sweden’s fastest player. But no matter. Fellow forward Victoria Svensson stepped up her game and twice found the net in the second half to give the Swedes a 2-0 victory in front of 34,256.

The first goal came in the 58th minute when Svensson leaped to head a cross by Malin Mostrom over goalkeeper Memunatu Sulemana and under the crossbar.

“At first I thought it was going to go over the goal, but then I saw it go in,” Svensson said.

Ghana came close to tying the score in the 86th minute when a bad back pass by Sweden’s Asa Lonnqvist resulted in goalkeeper Ulrika Karlsson hitting her clearance kick directly into Ghana’s Elizabeth Baidu. The ball rebounded over Karlsson, struck the crossbar and bounced back into the keeper’s arms.

Sweden then turned on its fast-break offense and, seconds later, Sulemana was picking the ball out of the back of Ghana’s net after Svensson had driven home a pass from Malin Gustafsson.

Ghana Coach Emmanuel Kwame Afranie complained afterward about his team not getting the calls, but Ghana’s overly physical play could easily have been more severely punished by Canadian referee Sonia Denoncourt.

Sweden will meet world champion Norway in the quarterfinals in the latest edition of one of the oldest rivalries in women’s soccer.

“Even though we won today, we had a lot of chances and we should have put the ball in the net,” Sweden Coach Marika Domanski Lyfors said. “We cannot afford those mistakes when we play a team of Norway’s caliber.”