Stina Blackstenius (L) of Sweden celebrates after scoring during the quarterfinal between Germany and Sweden at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup at Roazhon Park in Rennes, France on June 29, 2019. Sweden won 2-1. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)
RENNES, France, June 29 (Xinhua) -- Sweden came from behind to win 2-1 over Germany here on Saturday, knocking out the two-time Women's World Cup champions and making it through to the seimfinals.
It has been the first victory for Peter Gerhardsson's side in 24 years over Germany, last beating them in the 1995 touranment.
"We will stick together, even in defeat," said German coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg. "We are of course disappointed and it will be with us for a few more days."
"The willingness to keep on fighting and always pushing was great, and we showed a lot of passion today. This is something we have to go through as a team," she added.
With injured Dzsenifer Marozsan starting from the bench, Gemrany came up to a quick start, opening scoring through Lina Magull who made a brilliant acrobatic strike in the 16th minute after a smart asssist from Sara Dabritz.
However, Sofia Jakobsson was picked up by a long ball over the top and slotted it past German keeper Almuth Schult to equalize it on 22 minutes.
Marozsan, who broke a toe in Germany's tournament opener against China and had not played since, was sent on at the start of the second half, only seeing Sweden take a shock lead just three minutes after the restart.
A powerful header by Fridolina Rolfo was well cleared by Schult but Stina Blackstenius was well in position to fire the rebound home.
Marozsan later missed a perfect chance to force an extra time after heading wide in the 80th minute and the Swedes held their nerve to reach their fourth World Cup semifinals.
"We looked at Germany and knew there would be a bit more space behind their backline to exploit with Blackstenius and Jakobsson. Today it worked well, sprinting past the defensive line. We knew we had to threaten them behind their backline," said Sweden head coach Peter Gerhardsson.
With the win, Sweden joined the defending champions United States, England and the Netherlands for Lyon's semis, after Sarina Wiegman's Dutch side routing Italy, a surprise package of France 2019, 2-0 in Valencienne earlier on Saturday.
The top-ranked U.S. will face England on Tuesday while the Netherlands meet Sweden one day after.
