Sweden have just decided to close the roof of the Friends Arena for tonight’s game against the Red Devils. Given the heavy rain, the Federation wants to preserve the new lawn, which would have risked being damaged from the first match. But at the same time, playing in an indoor enclosure will raise the decibels in the stadium. Kevin De Bruyne and his teammates can expect a crazy atmosphere. As a reminder: the 50,000 tickets have all been sold.
This is the third time in their history that the Devils have played with the roof closed. At the 2002 World Cup in Japan, the second game – the 1-1 against Tunisia – was partly played indoors. The players had complained about the heat, the humidity and above all the lack of oxygen. When it had stopped raining, the Japanese had opened the roof.
And in October 2019, the Devils played in Kazakhstan in an indoor room. The level of the match on the synthetic Astana had not been very high, but the Devils had still brought back the three points (0-2, goals from Meunier and Batshuayi).
The Swedes very rarely play with the roof closed.
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