Montenegro and Sweden have only met once before. That was back in September 2007 in a friendly clash that ended as a 2-1 win for the Blågult courtesy of goals from Markus Rosenberg and Rade Prica that rendered Mirko Vucinic's early strike a moot point. Flash foward to the present and Saturday's match will be the first ever competitive fixture between these two sides.
Group G, in which both teams find themselves is shaping up to be an interesting one indeed. Three teams, including Sweden are still currently unbeaten, but Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his teammates find themselves third behind Austria due to their one win and two draws, and trailing Russia solely on goal differential. Meanwhile, Montenegro, which only began playing as an independent nation officially in January 2007, have done fairly well, with their four points seeing them just one behind their upcoming opponents.
Despite being his nation's top scorer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has yet to score in the qualifying rounds for what will likely be his last ever tournament at international level. It has not been a good season so far for the 33-year-old star, as injuries had kept him out of several of PSG's league and Champions League matches since September with a heel issue. However, he was able to make an appearance in last season's Classique against Marseille and featured for about 25 minutes in Les Parisiens' 2-0 win over their rivals.
Still, considering that he is still lacking in match fitness, it will be interesting to see if Erik Hamren opts to start the nine-time Guldbollen recipient against Montenegro. While the team nicknamed Hrabri sokoli (The Brave Falcons) are still relative newcomers to the international stage, players like the aforementioned Vucinic--who not only serves as captain but is also the team's all-time top scorer--and Manchester City's Stevan Jovetic are certainly familiar names, and Fiorentina followers will also know of young defender Stefan Savic.
They have also yet to qualify for any major tournament since breaking away from Serbia, but have started their EURO 2016 ambitions off well and are within just one point of Sweden and Russia in a pretty tight group. Sweden have looked less sharp without their talismanic captain leading the way and it will be interesting to see how they cope against a determined opponent with Ibrahimovic still working his way towards full match fitness.
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