England and Sweden Can Dare to Dream Without the Burden of Rooney and Zlatan

Freed from their shackles and no longer held back by past failures. For England and Sweden, this fascinating World Cup journey has been a long time coming.

It is two years since Zlatan Ibrahimovic announced his retirement from international football and nine months since Gareth Southgate dropped Wayne Rooney and signalled his intention to move into a new era.

Now, as the two nations compete in Samara, Russia, on Saturday for a place in the semi-finals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the two superstars are little more than a distant memory—marooned thousands of miles away in America's MLS.

And without the constant questions over Rooney and Ibrahimovic, new life appears to have been breathed into each camp.

"The team do play a lot better now than they did two years ago", journalist Noa Bachner of newspaper Expressen told Bleacher Report. "But whether or not that is because of Zlatan not being there is becoming the most tiresome question we know in Sweden, I think."

The Swedish people may be bored of the outside world wondering how they have managed to move on from greatest player they have ever produced. But it seems to have worked well for them.

He quit the national team after Euro 2016, and while there was some talk over a potential return for this tournament, any hope was put to bed when the selectors announced in April that a comeback would not be happening.

Since he has not been involved, Sweden have been showing great progress. They finished ahead of the Netherlands in their qualifying group, and they then beat Italy in a play-off to reach Russia. They are now two wins away from a place in the World Cup final, and the closest Ibrahimovic has been to this tournament was a brief visit as a special guest. Right now, he is back in America playing for LA Galaxy.

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Ahead of the tournament Expressen ran a poll to ask readers whether they thought the team would be better off with or without Ibrahimovic.

Results showed that 33 per cent said better, 30 per cent thought worse, 31 per cent voted no different and the remainder could not decide.

Given that Sweden are enjoying their best run since 1954, it's probably fair to say they are doing just fine without him. 

Swedish football expert Gunnar Persson has been writing about the game for almost 40 years and he told B/R: "The team spirit has been rebuilt, and that is something that the Swedish side always was famous for. Everybody involved seems happier, and the manager Janne Andersson is what you might call 'a real football man' with lots of common sense. There is no anxiety among the players, just the will to perform well."

Persson is one of the journalists who has not been missing Ibra.

"He became too big, too important," he said. "The team had no tactics, just the intimidating presence of Zlatan. Every attack had to go through him. I, personally, dreaded when he was discontent with his supporting cast and started coming back to collect the ball. At that point there was no one else up front, so he basically had to do it all by himself. You can't act like that, not on any serious level of play."

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England's story with Rooney has not been too dissimilar.

The country's greatest goalscorer of all time, his long road to the wilderness began before the last World Cup.

Roy Hodgson was under pressure to leave him out of the side following a spell of poor form at Manchester United but ended up squeezing him into the starting lineup on the left wing. There was a similar situation at Euro 2016. This time Hodgson had seemed more willing to leave him out of the side, but Rooney began England's opening match against Russia as a central midfielder.

It was Southgate who brought about the end of Rooney's international career, making a statement as he axed the captain for a game against Slovenia after becoming manager last year.

"I definitely didn't expect the manager to drop Wayne" said Three Lions defender Danny Rose ahead of this tournament.

"As soon as we all saw that we knew the gaffer was not somebody to be messed around with because he's dropped arguably one of the best England players ever and the top goalscorer as well. We've all had to move on from that."

Insiders from Hodgson's England days insist that Rooney was a good influence on the rest of the squad.

"He was great whenever there was a meet-up," a source told B/R. "He doesn't have much of an ego, and, actually, he was a great help for the younger players within the group. The storylines around him and constant questioning over whether he deserved to be in the side seemed to be a bigger issue for those outside of the team than in it."

Hodgson admitted as much all along, and in one interview back in 2014 he told me: "It's a bit sad that some people are so Wayne Rooney obsessed."

Yet now, with him out of the picture and plying his trade at D.C United, perhaps there is a new lease of life about the squad. All the talk across England is that this could be their time to win the trophy for the first time since 1966.

The memes around football coming home from the Three Lions song have added a depth of fun to England's campaign, but there is also a genuine growing belief that this team could be on the verge of something special.

A younger squad, many without the nightmares of past tournaments gone wrong, are showing a bond and togetherness that seems to be making up for a lack of elite talent. Harry Kane is the outstanding member, the only man truly worthy of being considered as a superstar of any sort, and boss Southgate has installed belief.

"All the bad memories that most of us have in terms of England in major tournaments just don't seem to bother this group of players," said Daily Mail's England correspondent Sami Mokbel. "Their approach has been great, so relaxed and media-friendly. Everyone seems happy, and their togetherness has shone through both on the pitch and back at their training base.

"It also helps that we don't seem to have a scapegoat. We don't seem to be looking to blame one person. Maybe Wayne Rooney was the last player attached to that golden era that failed to live up to the hype, and now that he is not part of things, there is a new beginning."

While England fans continue with their belief that football's coming home, the Swedes have their own ambition and dream. They too recognise that a path like this one leading to the World Cup final is rare.

"We don't really have the mythical, almost spiritual, narrative of the trophy 'returning to it's homeland,' but we do look at the fixtures coming up in the same way, and see the opposition as realistically beatable—even though we don't consider ourselves favourites," explained Expressen writer Bachner.

"However, with England and Croatia/Russia separating us from a final, there is a sober understanding that they are not better teams than the ones we've overcome to get here—such as France, Holland, Italy, Germany, Mexico and Switzerland.

"I'm in Russia, so I haven't seen the reactions of people in the streets in Stockholm or Gothenburg or wherever, but the general sense is that there is an escalating World Cup fever happening. The team has won the hearts and minds of the Swedish people with their performances over the past two years. I think that was won long before they got to Russia but is even more true now."

Argentina are counting the cost of relying on their superstar Lionel Messi at this World Cup. Sweden and England are showing how there can be a bright future without the all-time greats.