The first away trip of the Euro 2020 qualifiers will see the Malta national team cross swords with Scandinavian heavyweights Sweden at the Friends Arena in Solna, tonight (kick-off: 20.45).

After two respectable performances in their opening two qualifiers, which saw the boys in red beat the Faroe Islands 2-1 and then suffer a narrow defeat against European giants Spain, Malta are striving to remain positive in their attitude to improve on what they have started under coach Ray Farrugia.

In fact, it was just a year ago when Farrugia took over the national team following the departure of Tom Saintfiet.

Farrugia’s first pledge as Malta coach was to inject more youth blood into this team and one year on, ahead of a daunting task against Sweden, the former U-21 national team coach has repeated the same mantra.

“Our aim will remain the same – we want to include more youngsters into our set-up,” Farrugia told a news conference, on Thursday.

“Through the Nations League and now the Euro 2020 qualifiers, we want to make a big leap towards the future by giving international experience to the upcoming generation of players.

“These young players will help us change our mentality, in particular when it comes to implement a positive style of football and creating goal-scoring opportunities because these are situations on the field that can help us obtain much better results than in the past.”

Under his guidance, Farrugia gave the nod to several youth players such as Joseph Mbong, Juan Corbalan, Matthew Guillaumier and Kyrian Nwoko who all played key roles in the past outings including against the Faroes and Spain.

“So far, I can only give a positive assessment of the youth players who played under my rein as they showcased their skills in the utmost of professionalism,” Farrugia explained.

“Obviously, when you start such a process you need to be patient but what we are doing is for the sake of the entire Maltese movement and we want to stick to our plan of youth development.

“Heading into this game, we had to face some injury problems but we know that we can bank on the quality of the players that we have and who will be useful for both against Sweden and Romania.”

Against Sweden, Farrugia said that he is thinking about deploying two faces that are yet to make their starting debut with Malta in attacking midfielder Jake Grech and Luke Montebello, who is one of the three strikers chosen for the Sweden and Romania games.

Asked about the depth of the pool from where he can choose the players, Farrugia said that he has approximately around 76 players to pick from so that makes his job much more difficult.

“Well, I remember speaking to the England manager Gareth Southgate about the pool of players that we have and he had confessed to me that he has also the same problem,” Farrugia said.

“I remember replying to him that if that is a problem for a World Cup semi-finalist, let alone for a team which is lowly-ranked.

“That brings me to the fact that we are trying to maximise the potential of our pool while trying to make the best with what we have.”

Swedish concern

Coach Farrugia indicated that Sweden’s collective strength their main weapon, describing them as a very organised and compact squad that knows what to do with the ball.

“Rather than specifying on just a particular player, I would prefer to underline the collectiveness through which Sweden play as it makes them a very good side,” the Malta coach said.

“Physically, Sweden are a strong team but we do not want to take away nothing from them because they have improved a lot throughout the past years.

“In fact, comparing the videos of our games against them in the past with their recent performances, there has been a drastic change in their way of play.”

Farrugia added that there are particular situations on the field that they have been studying in order to try and minimise the danger against Sweden.

Meanwhile, goalkeeper Henry Bonello, who is expected to start between the sticks, rebuffed any discussion that he has now become Malta’s number one.

“I don’t think that in a national team there are regular players,” the Valletta goalkeeper said.
“For me, a national team call-up has to be earned through your performances at club level so every game you play it counts.

“Obviously, I am always preparing myself and hopefully I will be able to play against Sweden and Romania.”